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436: Eddy Cue Shows Up at Your Door

 

00:00:00   You went live before we could pre-flight. Oh, we're gonna be doing a show it's gonna be about technology and

00:00:06   We're gonna go through some follow-up first followed by some topics and then some ask ATP if we have time. Mm-hmm pre-flight accomplished

00:00:14   It's much more complicated than you think it can you imagine if you're getting in like a Cessna or god forbid like a actual arrow

00:00:22   Like a real jet and you watched the pilot do that pre-flight. Yeah, there's wings. There's landing gear. Yeah screw it. We'll be fine

00:00:29   This is why I'm not a pilot

00:00:31   This is why you should never give me a job where serious injury or death might result if I do something wrong

00:00:39   Did you know fun fact?

00:00:40   You need to if you ever dig out your drone again

00:00:43   You need to take a about 15-minute course before you're legally allowed to fly it again

00:00:47   Oh, yeah, that's interesting because I actually I registered with the FAA like a couple years back

00:00:53   But I'm sure the requirements have probably changed since then well, so there's that that's still applicable

00:00:57   if you have a drone that's more than 250 grams, but

00:01:01   In addition to that as of like a couple of days ago, you have to take a like 10 to 15 minutes

00:01:07   Please don't fly into other people. Please stay below 400 feet. Please. Don't be an idiot

00:01:13   That's the deal

00:01:15   Course and you can do it for free and like I said, it doesn't take very long

00:01:19   But in order to you if you were to get questioned and you did not have that like little card to show

00:01:26   Then you could get hypothetically in trouble now the likelihood of the FAA or even local law enforcement coming to question you is not great

00:01:33   Unless you're flying in like a national park or perhaps a national seashore in which case there's 50/50 chance

00:01:39   But I wouldn't be flying international seashore. Of course not I would be flying next to a national seashore and possibly

00:01:44   Overflying it. However standing in a place where it would be legal to pilot a drone. Actually. I don't know if that's okay or not

00:01:52   I do think it is I think it is in the clear. Yeah, the rules are that you are allowed to overfly national parks

00:01:58   As long as you are standing and taking off and landing in a place where it is legal to fly drones

00:02:05   And as long as the flight itself remains legal, which means it has to remain within your line of sight

00:02:09   So you can fly like as far as you can see into a national park while standing outside of it. Hmm

00:02:16   Well now, you know

00:02:19   Yeah, I want to I still want to get my my part 107 or whatever

00:02:23   It's called in order to be able to do it commercially like not that I expect to make any money off of it

00:02:29   but basically if there's even the whiff that you could one day make money off of something that you've done with the drone then you should

00:02:36   Be part 107 licensed and and I'd like to do that

00:02:39   But I told myself I'm not gonna do that until I get this app that is never going to be released released

00:02:43   So basically I'm never gonna do it ever

00:02:45   Make some money from your drone do you like uber for chipmunks?

00:02:49   Yes, uber for passive income from your drones no, so like if I

00:02:56   took pictures of my house or a friend's house and then I wanted to

00:03:02   Give it to them

00:03:03   Like I'm not even receiving money for it and I give it to them to use in a real estate listing. That's

00:03:10   Falling afoul of the FAA's guidelines. So even though I'm not receiving money because it was a commercial use I

00:03:17   Need to be part 107 licensed

00:03:19   So that is a stupid but silly

00:03:22   Example of you know, even my own house if I wanted to use drone pictures my own my own house

00:03:27   If I wanted to sell it then I would need to be licensed and I am NOT I do wonder how much

00:03:33   Money the FAA has for enforcement activity

00:03:37   We've recently learned about how terrible you and the IRS is about enforcing any of the tax laws

00:03:42   You know because that they don't go after the rich people because it cost too much money to pursue them

00:03:47   So they just go after a few poor people and call it a day

00:03:49   How much how much enforcement activity is there the FAA worrying about people with drones probably near airports?

00:03:55   Maybe some but like I don't think they're gonna find out that you took a drone picture for your friend's house to use in a real

00:04:01   Estate listing and track you down like I don't have that. I don't know you should find out I'm very interested

00:04:06   Like do they have like, you know thousands of agents wandering the internet looking for this or is it just like three people in a department?

00:04:12   Somewhere so I don't think so

00:04:15   I think if I was Casey Neistat in flying and I presume that he's part 107 license

00:04:20   But if I was Casey Neistat and you know posting to a million people on YouTube or whatever

00:04:23   No, they can't go after him. He's rich. Well, they have fair point

00:04:26   But nevertheless, I think it is unlikely that anything would happen where anyone would care what I was doing

00:04:33   Unless I'm flying near an airport, which is what you just said and I've also understood that national parks

00:04:38   Genuinely do get real upset and real cranky real quick

00:04:42   So as an example, I would love to fly in in the Shenandoah National Park, which is not too far from where I am

00:04:49   But the Shenandoah National Park is a national park and because of that

00:04:54   I will make people very upset very quickly in no small part because they want to be peaceful in the park

00:04:59   And I want to fill with the carcasses of a thousand drones exactly. No, you're right

00:05:03   And so I think if I were to do National Park or Airport, I could get into kind of big trouble kind of quickly

00:05:09   Outside of that I don't think it would be terribly easy to get in trouble

00:05:14   But I mean, I I don't want to insert like so I don't pay a lot of attention to read it at all

00:05:19   but one of the things I do pay a little bit of attention to is slash our slash drones and

00:05:22   It seems like everyone there is super

00:05:27   Prickly or they're super they're sticklers for the laws because as long as everyone's behaving

00:05:32   The long ban hammer of the FAA will not come down upon any of us

00:05:37   but if there's a bunch of idiots flying through the national parks and so on and like buzzing airports then the FAA is gonna have to

00:05:44   Start making ever increasing regulations making it ever harder to even just fly recreationally, which is what I do

00:05:50   Which is you know, just for the fun of it

00:05:51   So the theory is if you're not a jerk and if other people aren't jerks then we'll probably be okay

00:05:57   Yeah, it's like don't ruin this for everybody exactly exactly. So in short you're doomed

00:06:02   Without question without question

00:06:05   Do we want to do a pre-op pre-flight that's how where this all started

00:06:09   All right. Well, let's just dive in. Well, this is John's favor. Let's just start with some follow-up

00:06:14   Hey, if I wanted to reload a page in Safari, how do I do that John?

00:06:19   The eternal struggle to reload pages in Safari continue only for you John a few tidbits

00:06:24   One question that a bunch of people had that I actually didn't confirm until today because I just hadn't gone around to it

00:06:30   Is does pull to refresh work on Safari and Monterey on a Mac?

00:06:38   And as far as I can tell nothing I could do on the trackpad

00:06:41   And in terms of pulling the page down or anything seemed to make it a reload

00:06:46   The reason people bring up pull to refresh is especially early on

00:06:49   When everyone was complaining about the lack of a reload button

00:06:52   I mean I was specifically complaining about the lack of reload button with accompanying

00:06:57   Screenshot and link to video of the Mac version of Safari. That's why this came up

00:07:02   But everyone responded because you know, it's Twitter went off into the woods

00:07:06   I know you just pulled to refresh right because they didn't realize I was talking about the Mac version and not the iOS or iPad

00:07:11   Version but one of the features that was touted for the new Safari on

00:07:15   iPad OS and iOS is that you could pull to refresh the page which is great like that should totally be a feature

00:07:20   It makes sense. It's made. It's kind of native to iOS people are used to pulling things to refresh them, but

00:07:25   Practically speaking. It is not a complete replacement for a reload button

00:07:30   Because reload like well, I mean again, this is more of a web developer bent

00:07:35   But even for regular users say you are down at the lower section of some web page for your town and you're trying to

00:07:41   See if something has been updated to let you know that you're allowed to park or that school was cancelled or whatever and it's somewhere

00:07:48   Farther down the page people are used to I think even just regular web browsing people who are not web developers

00:07:55   Scrolling a web page to a particular position and then just bouncing on command R or in Windows parlance f5 or whatever or hit it

00:08:02   clicking the reload button

00:08:03   To reload that web page and for many many many many years now most good web browsers when you click reload

00:08:09   We'll try to return you to the same place where you were on the page assuming the page hasn't changed that much

00:08:14   It's not an easy feature to implement, but it's you know expected right?

00:08:18   So if you were looking at something that's you know

00:08:21   three screens down on a web page and you hammer on reload

00:08:23   You expect a good web browser to reload the page and not make you scroll back to find it again

00:08:28   Well, the only way you can pull to refresh is to go back to the top of the page again and pull the refresh

00:08:33   And iOS, of course

00:08:33   You can tap the status bar or whatever the top of the screen to zoom up to the front then you can pull to refresh

00:08:38   But now you've lost your spot and you've got to scroll back down to where you were. It's not as

00:08:42   Nice an experience as being able to be on a particular position on the page and just bounce on reload as you impatiently waited for

00:08:49   Something you know, so pull the refresh is great

00:08:51   It should definitely exist, but it doesn't appear to exist at all on the Mac and it is not

00:08:56   Like it doesn't preclude the need for any kind of reload UI

00:09:00   Especially on iOS on a phone where you are unlikely to have a keyboard attached to it where you can't actually hit command R

00:09:06   Your only recourse for reloading is some kind of button or UI element or going all the way back to the top of the page

00:09:11   And scrolling. Yes

00:09:12   another one is maybe like

00:09:13   People go to web bulletin boards if you're towards the bottom of a page in a web bulletin board and you're trying to reload to

00:09:18   See if someone replies having to scroll back down to the bottom would be terrible. So there's that

00:09:23   One more item on my reload button extension

00:09:28   As a bunch of people noted who looked at it and as I myself of course noted for a while

00:09:32   Did I talk about this? I did at the last show that the reload glyph was kind of misaligned because the arrow sticks up from

00:09:37   The top of it. I think I talked about that last week. I've been messing with

00:09:42   Various ways to fix that a lot of people sent in this suggestion. It's the exact suggestion that I had been pursuing which is

00:09:47   to try to defeat that these quote-unquote smart algorithm that positions that glyph by putting some kind of

00:09:54   Technically not completely transparent pixel somewhere to shove the perimeter of the thing around

00:10:01   And that does work and I put a very tiny, you know single pixel thing that is like 1% opaque

00:10:07   It doesn't actually show up in the UI in a way that you can see it, but it does let me reposition the button

00:10:12   unfortunately, I

00:10:14   You're still at the mercy of the algorithm, which is trying to like scale you and Center your non opaque pixels

00:10:20   So for me to try to get it aligned the way I want

00:10:23   First of all, I can't get it all the way along the way I want because I can't push it up high enough

00:10:28   like I'm there's a limit to how high the the non transparent parts of my

00:10:33   Glyph can go so I can't do it

00:10:35   Whatever one would want but just to align the circle with the greater than last then signs

00:10:37   I can align the bottom of the circle to the bottom of the greater less than sign

00:10:42   But then the top of it's too small and it scales it down. So anyway, I messed with that

00:10:46   There's a new version of my reload button up if you want to redownload it

00:10:49   I keep bumping the version number every time I do something like tweak the the reload glyph by two pixels

00:10:53   But I think it is better aligned now the bottom is not aligned and neither is the top but it's kind of splits the difference

00:11:00   I think it looks better

00:11:01   You know as Gruber said it looks better at a glance

00:11:04   but if you really squint at it, it looks worse but unfortunately

00:11:06   I can't get the result that I really want because I don't have total control over where these glyphs are drawn

00:11:10   all I can do is

00:11:11   essentially

00:11:12   You know put a key in a p-list that points to a PDF to my bundle

00:11:16   It says please use this glyph as the the button. Oh

00:11:19   and one final reload thing

00:11:22   Fin Voorhees posted on Twitter

00:11:24   That he has a reload button

00:11:27   Web extension. It's not the same thing as mine. I think it's think it's like the you know

00:11:31   If you think of a Chrome extension like that type of thing

00:11:34   Safari supports those two. In fact, it's the same format as the Chrome extension

00:11:38   Anyway, it's a web extension that puts the reload button back in the address bar

00:11:43   So if you miss that but like I said Safari doesn't even have the reload button in the address bar

00:11:47   But if you liked the reload button being in the address bar and you wish it came back on your Mac

00:11:52   Apparently there's a web extension that you can use to do that. I don't want that

00:11:56   I want it in my toolbar, which is why I have my extension, but if you want it in the address bar

00:12:00   Well, this thing didn't give a link to this

00:12:04   So I don't know if this is just a private web extension

00:12:06   But honestly, it's if you can make any kind of web extension you can make this one. It shouldn't be too hard indeed

00:12:12   Can you tell me about what Safari is doing to keep us safe, please?

00:12:15   This was confusing to me. I put this in the follow-up and and as as usual when I have time

00:12:21   I'm like, well, let me see if this is actually true. Someone said

00:12:23   This someone this is MacRumors.com

00:12:26   Safari on iOS 15 and Mac OS Monterey automatically upgrades web connections to HTTPS on compatible sites for improved security

00:12:32   I'm like, oh they finally added the equivalent of whatever HTTPS everywhere or one of those various extensions

00:12:37   That you could get for your browser what they would do is you'd go to a website and if you didn't put HTTPS in the front

00:12:42   They would try HTTPS first and only if that failed would they fall back to HTTP

00:12:47   So I tried my own website because my own website supports HTTPS, but it also supports HTTP

00:12:52   So I went to HTTP colon slash slash hypercritical.co

00:12:55   And it just went there. It didn't redirect HTTPS

00:12:59   Like maybe they were just wrong about this. I'm like, but this is this is story on MacRumors

00:13:03   It's not just a random tweet. So I read the story more closely

00:13:06   From the article Apple says that Safari now quote

00:13:10   Automatically upgrade sites known to support HTTPS from secure HTTP

00:13:16   Apparently my website is not known to support HTTPS

00:13:19   It does support it but it's not known so they do they have just like a a giant list of websites said

00:13:25   Hey, these are all the websites. We've discovered the support HTTPS because it's gonna be a really long list

00:13:29   Yeah, that's certainly not desirable. But you know, it's better than nothing

00:13:33   I kind of understand why they did it because those HTTPS everywhere things like if

00:13:37   Every time you went to a URL at first tried some other one

00:13:41   It's a lot of you know failed attempts that I don't know what percentage of sites that people go to on a daily basis

00:13:47   Don't support HTTPS anymore

00:13:49   But I can imagine when you do things at Apple scale you kind of have to be careful with a blanket policy of let's try

00:13:54   This thing that might or might not work before we do the thing you asked me to do, right?

00:13:58   Maybe I mean it makes sense for them to be conservative, but I also like it seems like these days

00:14:05   It would be safe enough to just try

00:14:07   HTTPS first because like the only way that would really break is if sites like have it enabled

00:14:13   But they don't really test on it. Maybe they have it enabled accidentally

00:14:17   And you know, maybe a certain functionality breaks on it

00:14:21   But I can't imagine that would be a common enough case to have to accommodate now

00:14:26   Yeah, I don't know. I mean it's still an improvement, but I'd like to see it better. It seems like it could be better

00:14:32   And speaking of things that could be better

00:14:34   iCloud private relay and regions so this was observed by among others Rali Rakhama who writes

00:14:41   I'm from Finland and Safari has put me into Russia and Germany not that close and all the services

00:14:46   Complain that they see me logging in from unknown locations

00:14:49   Also all services that use IP for localization tend to break whoopsie-dupsies

00:14:55   That's kind of a non us centric thing like we kind of think oh you can get close enough to my region

00:14:59   That's fine

00:15:00   But if you're in the middle of Europe Europe like, you know close enough to my region may be in an entirely different country

00:15:05   That speaks an entirely different language with more importantly entirely different

00:15:09   Laws and restrictions and websites that may or may not want them accessing it. So yeah, that's that's gonna be a challenge and it's

00:15:15   Finland Finland they call it the Wyoming of Europe not

00:15:19   Very high population density and but if you were in Finland and the website thinks you're from Russia

00:15:25   I can imagine you will not get the experience you expect that is very true

00:15:29   I actually went to Helsinki once I probably told the story before for a very brief work trip and I will never forget

00:15:36   It was late April and it was frickin cold in Helsinki go figure

00:15:42   But we were doing a thing where my company and this other company in Helsinki were trying to you know

00:15:48   elaborate on something and

00:15:50   You know, we were they were trying to like modify their API to for us a little bit and you know

00:15:55   We they were you know fielding requests from us and so on and this is late April and I said, okay

00:15:59   Well, you know, we'd really like to do this that and the other thing and they said, okay. Okay, we'll get that to you in September

00:16:05   Yes, September

00:16:09   Why not like May like it wasn't that much stuff to be done famous last words

00:16:13   But it wasn't that much stuff to be done right and they said well, no, no, we can't do it over the summer

00:16:17   I said why cuz we're not here. What? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we take off from like May till August

00:16:24   What yeah, we all go up we all go up to our lake shanties houses, whatever they called it sheds

00:16:30   Whatever like these I'm pretty I'm pretty sure it's not like shanties. Whatever it was

00:16:35   Loses something in translation. Yes, I learned that a vara is Finnish as well. I'm sure we're saying it incorrectly

00:16:43   No, ha ha ha ha means wide open spaces either way

00:16:47   my point is just that

00:16:49   Apparently the entirety of the country just like buggers off for three months in the summer and didn't nobody's nobody cares

00:16:55   Whereas an American can't leave work for three minutes without somebody getting perturbed about it

00:17:00   We live in the wrong country gentlemen, and this has been very obvious for the last four years or now

00:17:04   But uh, but man we are in the wrong spot

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00:18:46   Tell me about Martin has what he's winkle that's a great name and I probably mispronounced. What did Martin have to say?

00:18:55   Yeah, this is a question that I actually don't know the answer to and I tried to look at it up before the show

00:19:00   But it didn't find anything inclusive

00:19:02   So I figured to put it out there for the public if someone perhaps someone from Apple can let us know a lot of people

00:19:07   Are asking after the last show regarding I Club private relay

00:19:10   What about other applications like we read off the stuff from the WWDC slides like oh it does traffic in Safari does DNS

00:19:17   Lookups and it does plain HTTP traffic from any app

00:19:20   but the question is like what about like overcast or net newswire where they embed a webkit view and

00:19:25   Aren't doing anything different or special does webkit always do private relay if you're signed up for it if you embed it in your app

00:19:32   Are you doing private relay or does the WWDC slide apply and say well if you're doing plain HTTP, then we'll apply private

00:19:38   But it but if you're doing HTTPS in your embedded web view we won't do it

00:19:43   So I don't actually know the answer to this in terms of how many third-party apps that are not Safari

00:19:48   That are doing HTTPS connections will get this I saw a bunch of interviews with people like, you know

00:19:54   Federi went on this long tour visiting people that seem to imply that any app that uses Apple's frameworks

00:20:00   Meaning like if you're just embedded one of the modern webkit views you will use private relay

00:20:04   But the WWDC session totally didn't say that it said Safari

00:20:08   plain HTTP from apps and DNS queries, so if anyone knows

00:20:12   Please tell us and then

00:20:15   Reneau lean heart said I learned from the talk show. I think this was a federally interview

00:20:20   And jaws that private relay is always used to contact known trackers even without an active subscription to iCloud

00:20:28   Plus, so I think this is part of Apple's anti tracking thing that Apple does have a list of these are like the various

00:20:34   web, you know DNS entries host names that are used to track people for ad networks and everything and

00:20:39   No matter what, even if you don't have iCloud private relay because you don't pay for iCloud storage or whatever no matter what?

00:20:46   The whole OS just Safari again same question

00:20:50   But either way they will use private relay to connect to those trackers no matter what which is nice. That's a huge thing

00:20:57   I mean, you know the the whole Safari

00:20:59   Intelligent tracking prevention feature that launched a few years back. I'm from her correctly

00:21:04   I mean, they've amped that up every year and

00:21:07   to

00:21:09   Basically remove IP address trackability from all known trackers for all iPhone users

00:21:16   Not just iCloud plus subscribers. That's a big deal

00:21:19   So that's you know yet more, you know, wonderful anti tracking stuff from Apple that that actually

00:21:25   Seems to have no real harm to like, you know

00:21:29   The good side of things and seems to just only foil the crappy creepy people. Well foil

00:21:36   I mean

00:21:36   This is always a cat and mouse game right every every time Apple has been doing these moves for years and every time Apple has

00:21:41   Done something there's been an answer like okay. Well if we can't do that, we'll do this

00:21:45   So I can't do that would even just the recent Google thing of what the hell is it?

00:21:49   Chat room tell me the acronym that I can't remember that has an F in it. Oh, they're weird like cohort thing

00:21:54   Yeah flock, but I don't know what it stands for federated learning of cohorts

00:21:58   See you didn't you don't need to wait for the chat room. There you go

00:22:00   Anyway, there's always an answer or before that it was like fingerprinting based on your installed fonts and those doors were closed

00:22:06   It's a cat and mouse game

00:22:07   so so I don't think anything that Apple does is a sort of permanent solution to this but this is this latest salvo is

00:22:13   Seems pretty potent and I hope it takes longer for the creepy add tracking companies to figure out how to way

00:22:19   Hack around it. So for you monsters that scroll

00:22:23   Naturally, I hear that you cannot set that up by device like we thought last last week

00:22:29   So what's going on? That's part of the magic trick or talked about the magic trick of universal control. Am I getting that right?

00:22:35   Where they use the the edge of the screen that you jam your cursor against as a signal of you basically telling the computer

00:22:42   which side of your

00:22:44   Mac the you know iPad is sitting on or whatever so they don't have to figure out and they don't have to ask you

00:22:49   Well last show I mentioned that you can set the mouse and trackpad scroll directions separately

00:22:54   Something that I've done through my entire life of using Apple devices with mice and track pads and you can guess where this is going

00:23:01   It's always worked for me because there's the magic trick. I never use them at the same time

00:23:07   So if I had occasion like oh, here's a trackpad

00:23:10   Oh, I rarely use a trackpad button hook one up for a second and I'd be like, oh the scroll direction is wrong

00:23:15   And so I would go to system preferences and I would go to trackpad and I would see the checkbox there and say oh

00:23:19   I see the problem. It's set to you know, the the wrong direction

00:23:22   I would click it and go back the other way right and then later on I'd switch back to a mouse and

00:23:26   Then and then the mouse from like oh the scroll directions wrong

00:23:29   I must have messed it up when I have the trackpad and I go to the mouse preferences and I'd change it or whatever

00:23:32   It was tricking me into thinking that those are two separate checkboxes, but you know, are you getting it?

00:23:37   These are not two separate checkboxes. They're the same checkbox

00:23:40   If you don't use both input devices at the same time, you may not realize that

00:23:46   But there is apparently only one setting but fear not third-party software to the rescue because unlike iOS Mac apps can do this

00:23:52   We'll put two links in the show notes one to scroll reverser and another to utility called the most or mouse MOS

00:23:59   Both of them let you have actual independent scroll directions for mice and trackpads

00:24:05   Despite the fact that even though you might think you can with the OS

00:24:08   It's a trick you can't

00:24:12   All right, and then you had brought up a vara a vera whatever it's called earlier Tom, I think I don't know

00:24:19   I'm going with like the Google Translate like Finnish voice thing. Like if you make it try to say it and finish

00:24:24   I don't know. It's like it's like petty for us

00:24:26   Like knowing how you're supposed to say it in the origin language doesn't mean you know how to say it in English

00:24:30   But I don't know how to say it in either one. So yeah that cool mech game from the 90s 80s

00:24:37   I don't know what they gave anything happened in it's gotta be 90s. Maybe it was the 2000s anyway

00:24:42   This is from Dan Watson. He says wild hearing you talk about a vara this week

00:24:47   I and a group of old players got permission from ambrosia and the original author to port it to modern OS's check it out

00:24:53   If you want to take a trip down memory lane

00:24:54   And we'll link to the github page where you can see the source code and also download binaries for Mac and Windows

00:25:00   I download the Mac one it runs on modern Mac OS and it is amazing

00:25:04   Yeah, if you don't have nostalgia for this game, you're gonna be like what the hell is this?

00:25:08   But if you do have nostalgia for the game, it is as you remember it. It's pretty amazing

00:25:13   This does not

00:25:15   Look good, and I understand I understand it's from a very different time

00:25:21   Like I get that like you look at descent with modernized and descent did not look good, but at a glance this looks

00:25:28   Primitive what this had over to say I mean

00:25:31   This was still in the age of software rendering descent was also in the age of software rendering for the most part as well

00:25:36   These started in the age of software rendering right? So no 3d cards

00:25:39   Just you know your CPU and you know trying to texture map stuff

00:25:43   But what a var had over a descent was like what all Mac games had over things as max had pixels that weren't the size of

00:25:49   boulders

00:25:50   So here we go. It was quote unquote high resolution what it had against it was hey, no texture mapping

00:25:57   Right, so extremely sharp, but flat shaded polygons. Yeah, see I'm not impressed because I look at descent

00:26:04   I'll put links in the show notes if you look at the one of the screenshots from descent that is in wicket

00:26:10   That is on Wikipedia

00:26:11   Like it looks like a video game

00:26:14   Whereas you look at one of the screenshot from Wikipedia of Avara first of all

00:26:18   It's a postage stamp which may just be because of the screenshot

00:26:21   It may not be because if you put it on your 6k monitor now from the modern version you can make it really big

00:26:26   Fair, but it looks like garbage. It looks like Star Fox if anything. I don't even see a screenshot on me

00:26:32   I just put it in the chat. It'll be in the show notes. Oh, no, that's not how big the game is

00:26:37   I don't understand why that's so tiny

00:26:39   But yeah

00:26:40   It's flat-shaded polygons and I misspoke like 12 times it around the last show

00:26:44   The little Walker that you play it's a two-legged the chicken Walker not a 2d chicken Walker. Anyway, it's got two legs

00:26:50   It looks like an add ST

00:26:52   and a descent so what descent had going for it, which apparently was

00:26:56   Too complicated to ever do again with six degrees of freedom almost no games do that

00:27:01   I mean, I suppose if you technically you could say x-wing does it but not really but anyway descent was really all all possible degrees

00:27:07   Of freedom there is no up. There is no down

00:27:09   There's only like you and you can face any direction, right? Which is cool

00:27:13   And that's one of the reasons that descent was memorable Avara

00:27:16   The main thing I mentioned last time is that your movement direction and your looking direction were independent which almost no games do these days

00:27:23   the simplification that almost every game does is if

00:27:27   You look in a direction and press forward you will be going in the direction that you're looking which greatly simplifies moving around in

00:27:33   a 3d world

00:27:34   but the possibilities

00:27:35   Where you are actually like a little mechanical two-legged tank where your movement direction and you don't kind of like any kind of tank your movement

00:27:41   Direction and where your guns are facing are independent

00:27:43   Really makes the game much more complicated

00:27:46   Difficult and unfamiliar and why you probably won't enjoy it if you try it really selling it John this this looks like

00:27:53   back in probably

00:27:56   1995 or something the local

00:27:59   Science Center in Columbus, Ohio that where I grew up called cos I they had this VR demo

00:28:07   It was like a huge do you remember like around that time those were going around?

00:28:10   Oh, yeah, and it was you know way before you could get VR anything for any kind of home hardware

00:28:15   But they like, you know, there were some you know big installations of it

00:28:18   You could you could go try at these science center places for kids and it was very much like this

00:28:23   I tried it for like five seconds and it was very much looking like this this screen shot of this game

00:28:29   We're just like a very small number of very big flat shaded polygons

00:28:34   No, not even like, you know lighting effects like there's no gradients or any shadows

00:28:40   It's just like flat shaded polygons one color per face, you know vague 3d perspective

00:28:46   Not really anything fun and it was barely even impressive

00:28:52   But the idea of like VR sounded really cool

00:28:54   This is a back what back when there was the rumor that these Sega Genesis we could it was gonna get a VR headset

00:28:59   It would have been about this good. Yeah, these VR demos were always running on like

00:29:03   $60,000 worth of SGI hardware you realize like to get these flat polygons. Oh

00:29:08   goodness, I with some very old follow-up with regard to Apple podcasts and

00:29:13   Show notes which one of you would like to explain to me what's going on?

00:29:16   I threw this in here just just because I think it's fascinating to watch how Apple's podcast stuff is

00:29:21   Evolving slash breaking slash getting fixed. We were trying to figure out what the deal we mentioned on a past show that Apple podcasts the

00:29:27   Application on iOS is bad at displaying show notes, right? But then we're getting reports in from our listeners

00:29:32   Hey, you know show it's look messed up or some people saying the show. Let's look fine here

00:29:36   I can see all the links and so gathering the feedback

00:29:39   We eventually what we learned was that the ATP member feed displays correctly in Apple podcast, but the ATP public feed does not

00:29:48   And I thought well, maybe there's something weird about the feed so I diff them. Nope

00:29:52   Yeah

00:29:53   The only thing that is different in the feeds are the URLs and a couple other things that have nothing to do with the content

00:29:58   And yet I could reproduce this on Apple podcast on my own phone

00:30:01   I would look at the member feed and the show notes would be a nicely

00:30:05   You know indented list with links and everything like that and then I'd look at the public feed and it was just a giant mess

00:30:10   And there was no links. I have no explanation for this. I do for DeMarco

00:30:15   What what the heck is going on, but we're just telling you that this was reported to us and was reproducible

00:30:20   And we don't know what's causing it

00:30:21   But I can tell you that the feeds are not different from each other in any way that would cause this

00:30:25   So the reason why is not the feed it's how Apple is getting and managing it as far as I can tell so

00:30:32   Apple podcasts until this update

00:30:34   Every version like every client out there was downloading the feeds directly from their publishers

00:30:40   This is not what almost any other modern podcast app does

00:30:44   Almost all our modern podcast apps they'll download the audio files from directly from publishers

00:30:50   But they won't download the feed the feed is getting refreshed centrally by their app servers

00:30:55   And they're just like, you know pushing notifications to the apps to say all right

00:30:59   Hey download this download this download this whatever and Apple podcasts does not work that way at least did not work that way until this update

00:31:05   And as a result it got some interesting benefits. So overcast does server-side crawling and has since the beginning

00:31:12   One limitation of server-side crawling is that you can't crawl

00:31:16   Podcast feeds that are not public like that are not on the public internet

00:31:19   So if some business has an internal RSS feed for an internal podcast, it's only accessible on their network

00:31:26   You can't listen to that in overcast. You can listen to that in Apple podcast

00:31:30   You've always been able to and there's very few apps that that still do that these days that that are that are among the ones that

00:31:35   Like people really know well when Apple released this big update and a couple months ago that enabled all this new stuff

00:31:42   They moved to server-side crawling

00:31:45   But only for podcasts that are in their directory

00:31:50   If you still add a URL

00:31:54   Like directly in from the app like subscribe by URL

00:31:58   Rather than subscribing through their directory. It will still crawl that feed the old way directly from the app

00:32:04   So there's two different paths for the data to get into the Apple podcast app the server-side crawling path

00:32:11   That most feeds in their directory are now using

00:32:14   strips out HTML for show notes

00:32:17   The local path where the app crawls the feed directly

00:32:21   Which is what would happen for our member feeds and any other feed that you add by URL

00:32:25   The app is keeping those

00:32:28   It's keeping the HTML in the show notes and it's not doing the same kind of filtering

00:32:34   It's going through a whole different path and my guess is they didn't write that code into the app

00:32:38   So that's why this is this these two different things that are happening. It's not a good reason, but I'm pretty sure that's the reason

00:32:45   Yeah, just to make it clear. We're not doing this to punish people on the public feed

00:32:49   Really, you're being punished by using Apple's podcast app, which is not great

00:32:53   You should use a different app, even if it's not overcast any Apple do better. I think with the show notes, but

00:32:57   For the members, I guess this is a fringe of benefit

00:33:01   You're getting without knowing it you get non broken show notes if you use Apple podcast, but really maybe don't use Apple podcast

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00:34:32   All right SSD we're reporting in Mac OS remember this

00:34:40   Apple insider reports that a source they spoke to at Apple confirmed that the problem was always an issue with what the OS was displaying

00:34:48   Not what it was actually doing behind the scenes. So

00:34:52   Help me remind myself and the listeners. So this is that people were getting Apple silicon max and they were seemingly

00:34:59   Absolutely thrashing the SSDs to a point that was deeply concerning and so it sounds like that's really just a display issue

00:35:07   Not an actual thrashing issue

00:35:09   I was using some tool that was showing a bunch of stats and the stats look terrifying and as when we discussed in the show

00:35:14   We said well, we don't know if these stats are necessarily accurate. We'll have to wait and see well

00:35:18   this is the long-term follow-up we waited and saw and

00:35:21   Apparently this was a display issue. I mean again, this is from Apple insider an anonymous Apple source, you know

00:35:28   It is not like apples than making an official statement on this

00:35:30   The other part of this is that in Mac OS 11.4, which I think was just being released when this story was written

00:35:37   It now properly reports the numbers like so the same tool will get better numbers from the OS

00:35:43   So it's a combination of okay

00:35:45   well

00:35:46   if you if you run those tools now you will see more reassuring numbers and also by the way

00:35:52   Supposedly back when you were seeing the numbers that were scaring you those numbers weren't accurate

00:35:55   So if this is all true

00:35:57   It is good news for everybody with an ARM Mac that their SSDs are not going to prematurely wear out

00:36:02   that's that's a very big if but it is plausible that this would be true and that I think is

00:36:10   more plausible than

00:36:13   SSDs somehow writing like hundreds of gigs of data without any correspondingly obvious file system activity or anything like that

00:36:20   Yeah, or without like bogging down your whole system. Like it's always been the problem with the whole chrome thing

00:36:26   It's like look if this is a real problem

00:36:28   Eventually, we should be able to have some kind of reproduction. So same thing with the SSD if those numbers are real

00:36:32   Where is that data coming from and going to and shouldn't we be able to see that happening?

00:36:37   Somehow if not the file system and at least some tacit amount of CPU involvement

00:36:42   Yeah, so I don't this is not conclusive

00:36:45   But I just did want to follow up if someone is out there still being terrified that their their m1 max SSD is destroying itself

00:36:51   probably isn't

00:36:53   hopefully maybe

00:36:55   All right, and then John if you wanted to email yourself, how would you do that?

00:36:59   Oh, this is the best app. This is my app of the year my

00:37:03   Personal kind of fear maybe the app of last year. I've been beta testing this for a while on a show a long time ago

00:37:09   I was complaining about my inability to find a good replacement app from my old app that would mail something to myself and

00:37:17   The main thing that I'm mailing to myself is tweets

00:37:19   I know this is a terrible workflow that everybody hates and will tell me I shouldn't do it

00:37:23   But I've been doing it for a long time and it works for me. Oh

00:37:25   Hold on you get to do that with your your tweet email workflow and everyone just says okay. It's a one-step workflow

00:37:32   It's not it's not quite

00:37:34   Don't you ever talk about my photos again, sir?

00:37:36   And also there's there's no sort of Apple supplied, you know equivalent one, right?

00:37:42   Anyway, very often. I wanted to mail a tweet to myself because I want to you know

00:37:46   Say talk about it on the next ATP and there's not like really a good with my third-party Twitter clients

00:37:52   It's not really way to like bookmark those tweets or anything like that

00:37:55   So mailing them to myself is the way to go and I had this like mail to self app, you know from years ago

00:38:03   That would make a nicely formatted email that would include the entire tweet and any

00:38:08   Attachments and who was from and a link to the original tweet would make a nice email to me

00:38:11   So I had all the information there wouldn't have to go dig it out again, right and that app eventually

00:38:16   I think GDPR killed it maybe like or the developer just stopped doing it. You know, it broke years ago

00:38:21   I was like, alright, I need some equivalent

00:38:23   I tried to make a bunch of shortcuts to do it and I just couldn't figure it out because

00:38:26   Some combinations of me of me hitting shortcuts

00:38:29   Me not using the official Twitter client

00:38:32   And just generally like it's mostly me hitting shortcuts if I bang my head against that

00:38:36   I probably could have come up with a shortcut that would have worked but I didn't and

00:38:39   There's a million mail things to yourself apps on the App Store and I think I bought all of them

00:38:43   None of them quite worked the way I wanted and I complained about it on ATP ages ago and somebody heard me and said oh

00:38:50   We're making an app like maybe there I don't know if they were already making this app

00:38:53   But anyway, they made an app that you mail stuff to yourself and they added a bunch of features just for me

00:38:59   like it's got this advanced pane for mailing tweets specifically where you can do a sort of a

00:39:04   Print F style format string where you can basically say here's here's what the message is gonna look like, you know with little you know

00:39:12   Percent sender percent date percent message percent late, you know

00:39:16   You can just basically make the email look like exactly what do you want to look like including the subject line and the body?

00:39:20   So I did that and I've been using this beta. I know it seems like for a year now and they finally released

00:39:26   Yeah, the app is called mail. Oh, I

00:39:29   Don't like the icon, but I don't care

00:39:31   It is the best app because it lets me do with one tap

00:39:36   Send this tweet to me in an email form out of the way. I want it

00:39:40   You can use the mail share sheet. You can use a million other apps. My whole thing was I needed to be one tap

00:39:45   I don't want to enter anything. I don't want to enter an address. I don't want to type anything

00:39:48   I just want to do one tap of course

00:39:50   Around the exact time that this thing came out of beta into release

00:39:53   My favorite Twitter clients switched to making me do two taps to get to the share sheet which kind of bummed me out

00:39:59   But still once I get to the share sheet, it is just one tap

00:40:02   So if you ever wanted to mail yourself something with one tap specifically if that might be a tweet check out mail

00:40:08   Oh, this is an app just for you

00:40:10   Not a sponsor of the show and I'm pretty sure they didn't make the app entirely for me

00:40:15   But it seems like an app is just for me goodness

00:40:17   All right. Let's do a couple of

00:40:20   DC quick hits before we move on to SKTP. This is my favorite piece of feedback that we've gotten in a

00:40:28   decent amount of time

00:40:30   Jake Moore writes that you know, there's a refund API and I think we briefly touched on this that we thought would let app developers

00:40:37   actually issue refunds back to to users and

00:40:42   That's not actually the case and Jake Moore writes

00:40:44   The refund API doesn't let you programmatically issue a refund to your customers

00:40:48   It merely lets you show a sheet to customers so that they can request a refund from Apple

00:40:52   They hear back within 48 hours Jake continues. Thank you Apple for giving a sheet

00:40:57   Nailed it. Well done Jake love it. Absolutely. Love it

00:41:01   This is something that like I'm I'm really I'm a little disappointed that they didn't give us what we actually

00:41:07   Thought we were getting like when it kind of breeze buying the keynote in the state of the Union

00:41:11   because we really like one of the biggest challenges for app developers is

00:41:17   That we can't issue refunds

00:41:19   the only way for users to get refunds is to like submit a request to Apple and then they'll hear back with within 24 to

00:41:25   48 hours or whatever and so it's it kind of sucks to solve certain customer service problems that we can't do this for people

00:41:32   And and you know, it isn't just people who like, you know buy it and think they got ripped off or whatever

00:41:37   It's you know, what if somebody buys it thinking it'll do something and then it turns out it doesn't do it and they email you

00:41:42   And say hey, you know, why isn't it doing this and you have to write back say that's not what it does or sorry

00:41:47   That's impossible or whatever else. There's all sorts of keys like that where like you need the ability

00:41:52   When running any kind of business like this to be able to tell customers

00:41:55   Hey, I'm sorry. This didn't work out the way you wanted or I'd rather not take your money for this

00:42:00   Here's a refund and they didn't give us that

00:42:03   They did give us something that makes it a little bit better

00:42:07   The only downside to the system they've done here

00:42:10   so what they've done basically is allow you to as Casey said to pop up a sheet that

00:42:16   Basically submits the refund request to Apple easily for them

00:42:20   the problem there is that there's this expectation that

00:42:24   customers think that

00:42:27   developers have control over the money and

00:42:30   Customers think that if that if the developer wants to refund them they can and that this is like a choice and an ability that the

00:42:37   developers have

00:42:39   By putting this sheet up in your app

00:42:41   You're you're blurring that line even more you're making it even you're making it look even more like the developer has control over this

00:42:47   so if somebody submits a request for a refund and

00:42:50   Then it doesn't work out for whatever reason

00:42:53   They're probably gonna blame the developer even more and and be even less happy and leave even more one-star reviews as if it's our fault

00:43:01   That but it's not

00:43:02   so this is a this is a good step in the sense that

00:43:06   It shows Apple's listening to a problematic area like we have this problem area Apple for the first time ever is

00:43:14   Making something a little bit better and easier about refunds from within apps and that's good. That's a good first step

00:43:20   But this isn't really solving the problem. We actually have so hopefully

00:43:25   The the good intentions that went into this first step

00:43:30   They'll they'll take that forward maybe next year in next year's releases and give us the real second step that we actually want

00:43:36   Which is let us actually issue refunds if we want to

00:43:39   It's fascinating to me that Apple seems to not want to do that. I mean, I guess it's

00:43:45   like

00:43:47   Do they still do the thing where if you give someone a refund you still have to pay Apple to 30%?

00:43:52   I don't think they ever did that. I think that is a misunderstanding of

00:43:57   Certain like language or maybe just like an urban legend as far as I know that was never actually the case

00:44:03   Well either way like the the existing rule they have about

00:44:06   Not rule the policy that they have about perhaps not explaining the situation clearly to the customer. I'm assuming applies here

00:44:14   So for example, if you threw up your own sheet before the official one that said I'm gonna throw up a UI right now

00:44:20   That's gonna let you refund stuff

00:44:22   I know it's gonna be inside my app

00:44:23   But keep in mind that that I the developer of this app can't actually give you a refund only

00:44:28   Apple can and the only thing the sheet you're about to see does is submit a thing to Apple and then you trigger the sheet

00:44:34   I'm assuming Apple will reject you for that

00:44:36   Because Apple doesn't really like you explaining to people how things work

00:44:41   I mean that's I have an email snippet that does exactly that because I get the question so often

00:44:46   I know every developer does that's why that's why this is a problem, right?

00:44:50   I'm trying to think of why why doesn't Apple want developers to be able to refund stuff because a developer

00:44:55   Seems to have the same incentives as Apple to either give or not give refunds because that you're giving back money, right?

00:45:02   And so good customer services you give back the money

00:45:04   But of course that means you make less money and if Apple never really did keep its 30%

00:45:08   then

00:45:10   Like what are they afraid of they afraid that if we let developers refund they'll just refund everybody

00:45:14   Why would a developer do that? They would lose all their money. I'm gonna refund everyone who's ever bought my app

00:45:18   I'm mad with power now that I can officially issue refunds the developer

00:45:23   Like it's not a threat to be if you give developers this power

00:45:28   Like what is the bad thing that will happen right now?

00:45:32   I can see the reverse where people say well Apple issue refunds in the case where the developer can't by all means have an

00:45:37   escalation path as in

00:45:39   developers can re issue issue refunds, but also

00:45:42   Apple gets to see the requests and Apple can make its own decision

00:45:45   So even the developer says no, I'm not giving you a refund Apple can say actually we are giving this person a refund, right?

00:45:51   That seems perfectly plausible and I don't see any

00:45:53   harm in giving the developers power on the sort of the opt-in side as in

00:45:59   Developers can immediately give a refund anytime they want and also

00:46:05   Customers can go directly to Apple and ignore the developer and just say Apple give me a refund this developers a jerk, right?

00:46:11   But we don't have those instead. We just have a UI maybe this is a step on the road to that, right?

00:46:15   Sometimes these things roll out slowly

00:46:17   We'll see

00:46:18   but yeah

00:46:18   it's kind of a kind of a bummer that we all thought developers are going to have the ability to give refunds and really it's just

00:46:23   The ability to throw up as Marco pointed out a very confusing UI

00:46:27   that's only going to make customers even angrier developers because it's like I would I can imagine what your little like text expander snippet or

00:46:33   Whatever says mm-hmm, but I know for a fact having told this to many people in the real world

00:46:38   Nobody believes you when you say that no, it seems absurd that that the developer of an app can't issue you a refund and

00:46:46   When you say that you sound like you're scamming them. You sound like a scammer like oh, sorry. We can't do that

00:46:51   Yeah, you have to wire the money to especially, you know, it's like

00:46:54   It sounds like a scam but it's the truth of the App Store and it's so absurd. Nobody believes it

00:46:59   No, I mean and to be fair like I do think

00:47:02   There are legitimate reasons why Apple would be really cautious about going into something like this

00:47:08   like if like in part it's because it has to do with money and

00:47:14   It's the app store. You use it for money laundering. You just buy expensive applications then refund. Yeah possibly

00:47:19   I mean like the way the system is set up right now developers don't get paid for a long time

00:47:24   I think it's like 45 to 90 day or 60 days after you actually make the sale

00:47:28   That's when you actually get the money and and you can only request a refund within that time period

00:47:33   so when if you get a refund through Apple, the developer has not yet been paid that money and

00:47:39   So if you just if you get a refund during that like 30-day period whatever

00:47:43   Apple just subtracts it from what they owe you

00:47:46   So there no money actually changed hands between Apple and developer in that in that process. So like that that end is probably fairly safe

00:47:52   But when you're talking about the App Store and something where somebody can automatically

00:47:58   Do something to the money?

00:48:01   that opens it up to

00:48:03   potentials for

00:48:05   ridiculous scams on ridiculous scales that

00:48:08   We can't even imagine because the App Store is suction like all of Apple stuff, but especially the App Store

00:48:13   It's such a massive target for any like any potential scam with the money side of things

00:48:19   Will be exploited in mass and so I think Apple probably goes about that

00:48:24   Extremely cautiously and not to mention the fact

00:48:28   That when you're talking about the money side of things and adding capabilities to it

00:48:33   you're talking about modifying a

00:48:35   Very important and very old part of Apple's tech stack like the the whole like, you know

00:48:41   App Store iTunes store like that whole infrastructure is really old and really important and

00:48:47   It's like modifying old banking software. There's never a good time to do that. Nobody ever wants to do that

00:48:54   What manager is ever gonna say I want to take on that project like they're just there the incentives are all wrong

00:48:59   No one's ever gonna want to do that

00:49:00   So it makes sense why like I don't I think Apple's gonna put in

00:49:04   relatively little resources into

00:49:07   actually making that kind of thing happen because

00:49:10   The incentives don't make sense for anybody taking on those problems and the risks are very high to the company

00:49:16   Even though it is something that we want as developers

00:49:19   You know as a developer of two dinky apps that no longer sell

00:49:23   I've often wondered how the refund stuff works because my apps are also confusing and people buy them and don't understand what they do and

00:49:29   It's not their fault. They're really weird apps, right and they ask for refunds

00:49:32   So very often when I look at my like, you know app figures graphs or whatever. What did you make today? I made negative four dollars

00:49:40   Frequently I make negative money which hopefully is offset by a positive day

00:49:47   Somewhere else in the month

00:49:48   But I do wonder if I have if I go a whole month with like a net negative balance from people getting refunds for my apps

00:49:55   What does Apple do do they just do they come and collect that for me or do they just assume that I will have future?

00:50:01   Income from which they can subtract it because I'm not sure if that's entirely the case any cues up at your door

00:50:05   Yeah, it just goes you owe us 15 bucks my guy. I guess here like

00:50:10   Do you think sure do I have to Apple pay?

00:50:13   As far as I know I don't think that would be possible because again like I think you can only get a refund

00:50:18   For sales for works the developer hasn't been paid yet

00:50:21   So I I don't think it would be reasonably possible for you to actually have like a negative sales statement

00:50:28   Yeah, I mean like the day's income may be negative but like a previous day was positive and it's just you know, right?

00:50:34   Yeah, I don't I don't know

00:50:36   Anyway buy my apps

00:50:39   Don't get refunds

00:50:41   Read the descriptions. I try really hard in the descriptions to explain every like literally everything they do

00:50:46   It's not if it's like what what it's just what you see on the menu

00:50:49   All right, like if it's not listed in the description my app doesn't do it

00:50:52   People have all these fantasies about what my apps will do and I'm like, no doesn't do that

00:50:56   If it did I would have written in the description, but I didn't

00:50:59   My favorite one-star review ever for instapaper one star not a very good game

00:51:07   Congratulations you played yourself

00:51:13   We have good news for people who are old and or blind which I think basically covers all three of us

00:51:19   Per app text size and iOS 15. So I have not played with this myself

00:51:23   But apparently I think in control center you can set the text size

00:51:28   per

00:51:30   Application which is very very cool. This is fantastic. Like this is so this is another thing

00:51:36   That's like so badly needed for so long in this case, though

00:51:39   It should be fairly straightforward for Apple and not involve potential for massive like Russian money laundering at scale

00:51:45   so in this case like

00:51:48   Every developer who's ever made an app has had user requests saying

00:51:52   Can you add you know feature X that would allow me to override some system preference just for your app?

00:52:00   It could be rotation. It could be dark mode. It could be font size. Those are like the three big ones

00:52:06   that's why so many apps have options in their setting screens that for like rotation lock of just this app or

00:52:12   Override dark mode with your theme override light mode with a dark theme because it's a very common request and font size is one of those

00:52:18   Things so to have a feature built into the system where people can now adjust the font size for your app

00:52:24   independently of the system font size

00:52:26   Removes the need for lots of those features to exist and gives people who want to customize or need to customize the font size

00:52:32   Way more control over exactly how and when that happens. So this is great. Does anyone know where this UI comes from?

00:52:39   I just have the screenshot here, but I don't know it does look like a control center you same this looks

00:52:43   This looks like control center to me, but I don't know and the device that I have the beta on is downstairs

00:52:48   So if you really care I can run and get it. But yeah, I put a iOS 15 beta on my iPad. Oh, that's true

00:52:55   I do I have it on there and the iPad

00:52:57   Hold on like I was like, it seems like it's stable enough and I don't really care that much on my iPad

00:53:01   The one thing I wanted to play with was like so far on the iPad. That's why I put it on

00:53:05   every time I tap on the

00:53:09   I guess you still call the address bar

00:53:11   Anyway, the tab where the address whatever the active tab with the with the web address in it

00:53:16   Anytime I tried to put the insertion point into that text field Safari immediately crashes

00:53:21   This will across restarts. So I was 15 beta 1 not really working for me so far

00:53:27   But I will continue to look into it as it hopefully improves. So I'm on my iPad, which is

00:53:33   You know the 2018 13 inch and it's on the beta and I go into settings control center and I can add

00:53:39   Text size as one of the controls and control center

00:53:43   So I'm doing this live while we're all listening and then I went into fantastical and I see

00:53:48   Yeah, I can change the text size and fantastical which is you know, not it's the shipping version of fantastical

00:53:55   So that's kind of a weird UI because I think of the control center as a global thing and for people who aren't looking at

00:54:00   The screenshot right now. It's a giant text size bar with like a you know

00:54:04   Like the volume slider kind of with the big version and then at the bottom and has a little slider that says

00:54:08   And what does this one say slack only or all apps? So if you switch it to all apps?

00:54:13   Yeah, it's global you're changing the text size for the whole OS just like you would do in settings

00:54:17   But if you slide it over to the left it applies only to the current app

00:54:20   And I can't think of maybe I'm missing something

00:54:23   Is there anything else in control center that applies to the active app and not to like not globally?

00:54:30   Maybe the now playing

00:54:32   But that's now that's globally playing right? Yes

00:54:35   But it is kind of weird to think that that the control center now has a context now has like an implied target

00:54:42   Right. The implied target is the app you're currently using it. They try to make it clear with UI

00:54:47   I think this is a reasonable UI and honestly

00:54:49   I'm not sure where else you would do this except for burying it and setting somewhere which no one would ever find

00:54:53   So I'm not really saying this is a bad place for it. It's just a change from

00:54:57   The way I conceptualize what control center is but anyway, definitely a good feature

00:55:01   I wanted this feature myself like changing the

00:55:03   Text size for the whole OS is kind of a big commitment and not every app deals with text size changes that much

00:55:09   but if you have one app that for example handles it really well and

00:55:13   The text is just you know

00:55:15   Generally too small by default on this app to really be able to crank it up in that app without screwing up all your other

00:55:20   Ones that's great. You know, it's funny. I

00:55:23   Try to do a decent job of testing with preposterously large text, you know

00:55:28   Because this is something that that I need especially if I don't have my contacts in I'm freaking blind

00:55:33   Well, I am in again on my iPad. I went to control center. I

00:55:38   Went and I again I happen to be in fantastical and when I go to all apps

00:55:43   I have a six position slider, which is a little different than what you see in the screenshot

00:55:47   I'm not sure why if I go to fantastical only I have a like a 10 position slider

00:55:52   if I crank it all the way up to a text size of 310 percent the

00:55:58   310 percent is visually below the slider

00:56:01   So even Apple has instances where they haven't quite accounted for the biggest possible text size because it is

00:56:08   Freaking big and that makes me happy that it's not just me

00:56:11   TV TV OS 15 will supposedly let you sign into apps with an iPhone or an iPad

00:56:19   Tell me how this works. I mean it works the way that we had discussed is like, you know if

00:56:24   So for a variety of reasons there's no way for you to

00:56:28   Authenticate with just the Apple TV. You need some other device where you can essentially say. Oh, it's totally me here

00:56:35   free up all those passwords that are in my iCloud keychain despite the fact that

00:56:39   Presumably your Apple TV is signed into the same Apple ID and would have access to your iCloud keychain

00:56:44   If only there was a way to connect those dots, but still they're using

00:56:47   The phone and the iPad for that but now it is, you know, aside from you just using your phone as a remote, right?

00:56:54   Where yes, you're still accessing the same passwords

00:56:56   But you access them so you can put them into a text field on your phone

00:56:58   Apparently now you can use your phone or iPad

00:57:00   Just as sort of the access key to say yes

00:57:03   I approve on my phone therefore let me in and hopefully that will further streamline the sign-in I

00:57:08   had in my mind that but did not write in the notes the

00:57:11   Technical explanation for why the Apple TV can't just do this on its own and but I didn't write down

00:57:17   So now I don't remember what it was presumably

00:57:19   It's because there's no sort of way to authenticate yourself on the Apple TV. Like for example when you turn on your television

00:57:23   No one, you know

00:57:26   You don't have to constantly sort of unlock your Apple TV or sign into it like you would with a laptop or a Mac or something

00:57:31   Like that like the Apple TV once you enter your your Apple ID and everything is like perpetually unlocked

00:57:36   I know there's a setting for like don't allow purchases after 15 minutes after entering your password a bunch of stuff like that

00:57:41   But it just seems like the Apple TV is its current mode is that it's not

00:57:45   It doesn't have the same mobile security as any of Apple's other devices

00:57:49   So for it to have unfettered access to all the passwords in your iCloud keychain

00:57:53   Without another device somewhere else that has higher security confirming it like a watch or a phone or an iPhone or you know

00:58:00   iPad or whatever. It just seems like something Apple is not quite ready to do but they did apparently make it better with TV

00:58:06   OS 15 I don't have this beta installed, but we'll find out when we get installed

00:58:09   but if it if it saves me even if it just saves me having to enter a text field and do the password completion there if

00:58:14   It's just instead of UI that I can just you know

00:58:17   Stare at my phone or have it, you know or do watch unlock like the watch works run locking a Mac

00:58:21   That'll be an improvement that I will enjoy that the next time

00:58:24   Hey next time I buy another Apple TV for some inexplicable reason because we all just keep buying every new one that they put out

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01:00:23   Let's do some ask ATP and Ian writes hey

01:00:31   I'm curious if any of you have cut the cord or if you still have cable classic cable or one of the

01:00:35   What is OTT over the over the top? I believe over the tear. Oh, thanks supposed to be over the air

01:00:41   Maybe no no OTT is it's like it's like it you pay stuff in addition to other stuff

01:00:45   Well, anyway, I will start I still do have a cable plan I

01:00:53   Wonder all the time why I do

01:00:56   Honest with you, but but no I still the cable plan and I we use it enough that I'm not actively

01:01:04   looking to get rid of it and my understanding is if you were to

01:01:08   Look at if one was to look at the thing the shows that they watch

01:01:12   Oftentimes if you don't have a cable plan and I've not done this math myself

01:01:16   But if you oftentimes you don't have a cable plan

01:01:18   By the time you piecemeal all the different things to get all the shows you want you end up basically at a cable plan anyway

01:01:25   so I'm still playing paying Verizon files for cable TV and

01:01:29   I have a single set-top box that consumes it as well as past sponsor channels

01:01:35   Which uses TV everywhere? I think it's called in order to be able to consume it as well

01:01:39   And that's what I do John. I think you're in a slightly similar

01:01:44   Boat is me. Is that right? Yeah, I still pay for like all the channels and a regular cable thing

01:01:50   I still have multiple TVO's in the house. They have cable cards. They record things off of the television

01:01:56   I kind of you know similar situation to Casey and that like occasionally I look at it and say could we drop cable and just

01:02:03   Do it all in streaming

01:02:04   I mean, maybe it's slightly different in that I already pay for like so many streaming services

01:02:07   But it would probably not save me that much money due to the big bundle that I get with my internet and telephone and everything

01:02:13   and it would be more of a pain to

01:02:17   Seek out and subscribe to and deal with all the various channels to do it

01:02:21   But and still we are still using the TVO's right do we I do watch tons of stuff on streaming

01:02:26   But the TVO's do catch a lot of stuff

01:02:28   It's kind of frustrating

01:02:30   how

01:02:30   Streaming centric my viewing is now because sometimes I forget to set up the TVO to record a thing and then I realize I don't have

01:02:37   Any way to see the most recent episode of show X if I didn't tell the TVO to record it

01:02:42   But I did the you know the show aired and I could have recorded it, but I didn't but it's not on any streaming yet

01:02:48   And but if I didn't have cable at all I would have no chance of seeing that because sometimes they're you know

01:02:53   Still sort of cable first or cable only things or anyway

01:02:56   I know there are other options like YouTube TV and

01:02:58   Hulu has a TV thing like you don't have to pay for a traditional cable to get sort of broadcast television

01:03:04   But I still do just because it's what I'm used to and I think it actually is

01:03:08   Saving me a little bit of money and some of the other things like, you know

01:03:11   I pay for HBO like playing old-fashioned tape cable HBO. It means I get HBO max quote-unquote for free

01:03:17   Because it's part of my cable channel same thing with like when I'm looking for something on streaming

01:03:21   I have no idea where anything is or you go to the just watch

01:03:23   App or site and it tells me oh that's on epics. I'm like

01:03:26   The hell is epics do I have epics turns out I do I have everything

01:03:31   So I go to the epics app and it says hey sign in with your cable provider and I do and I've got epics like

01:03:36   Same thing with everything show time

01:03:37   But I have all the channels and very often by having all the channels with plain old-fashioned cable

01:03:41   Means I also have all the streaming apps with no commercials

01:03:45   So I've still got the cable and I like it and by the way the cord cutting thing is such it's like

01:03:50   Mechanical keyboard right or doing something in hardware versus software, right? It's a nonsensical phrase if you think about it

01:03:56   I'm gonna cut the cord only do stuff over the internet which comes to my house probably through a cord

01:04:01   But it's not the same corpus. Oh, maybe it is the same but still it's not the same thing

01:04:05   Most cases. I think it is the same

01:04:07   But you know what? I mean?

01:04:09   I mean cable not like the cable but cable as in cable town with a K

01:04:13   you know from 30 Rock like that's what I mean English is a confusing language and

01:04:18   Cutting cutting the cord so you can then use a different cord or the same cord, but it's not anyway

01:04:24   It's confusing mechanical keyboards very dumb - anyway

01:04:26   Marco what's your situation? I cut the cord. Sorry. I

01:04:33   Canceled cable something like 11 years ago

01:04:39   Ks you cut the cord and canceled cable every single one of those words in front of it. I think it was 15 years ago

01:04:44   It was a it was it's been a while

01:04:46   Because I the thing is like what keeps people on cable longer like even people who are nerds

01:04:53   usually it's either you watch a truly absurd amount of TV like John or

01:04:58   You are super into sports and I'm neither of those things. I watch some TV and no sports no live news

01:05:06   Nothing like that. So it was very easy for me and I'm gonna say you watch

01:05:11   Substantially less television than the average American most likely. Yeah, I think it's substantially then not just less in terms of hours spent

01:05:19   But also fewer things correct. You're very selective with your TV watching

01:05:22   Yeah, and and you know, one of the things is that you know, there's so much stuff on Netflix and and

01:05:28   Everything else that we pay for like it is right now. We have Netflix the Disney thing

01:05:34   The HBO thing and the ad free Hulu thing between all those. I mean, they're so oh, well

01:05:39   I guess we also have Amazon Prime Video because everyone has Amazon Prime Video accidentally

01:05:43   So we have all these things. We don't watch most of what's on most of them

01:05:48   Our needs are low and I don't want cable TV. I will occasionally get a chance to watch

01:05:55   TV like over-the-air TV or cable TV like in a hotel or something or when like at me, you know at family houses or whatever

01:06:03   And I can't stand it. I can't stand the commercials and the channels and everything

01:06:10   This is why I like it. I've never been into like the whole TiVo

01:06:13   Option because you still have to deal with the commercials and you could fast-forward through them

01:06:17   But you don't see you don't see the commercials like that experience you described that's exactly why people got TiVo's

01:06:22   I said goodbye to that experience like in

01:06:25   2003 or whenever the hell I got my first TiVo like I haven't seen broadcast television with commercials

01:06:31   Like the only time I ever see it is the Super Bowl and then I'm the only that watch the commercials

01:06:35   Well, but you still have to like fast-forward through them, right?

01:06:37   There's a single is a single button press like literally a single button press you just press the button it jumps to the end

01:06:42   Of the car. Why do they make you press that button instead of doing it on my I don't know

01:06:45   They're afraid of getting sued. But anyway, it's down to a single button press. No, that's still too much for me

01:06:48   But anyway, I have no interest in in that whole thing

01:06:52   It's way better than like if I if I am doomed to watch something on a streaming service that either

01:06:57   Doesn't have a way for you to give them money to get rid of the commercials or you don't feel like giving the money to

01:07:02   Watch this one episode of the show and they have unskippable

01:07:05   Commercials on a streaming service that makes me beg for my little green button on my TiVo remote, please

01:07:10   Please just let me skip

01:07:12   I literally won't watch a show if that's the only reason if that's the only way I can watch it

01:07:16   I just won't watch it because it's always the same commercial three times - oh, yeah

01:07:20   That's why like I didn't have Hulu until relatively recently when they launched a like truly ad free thing because I

01:07:27   Will not do that. Like I don't care

01:07:29   Well, I don't care how good people say the show is if that's what I have to do to watch it. I won't watch it

01:07:33   Yeah, I know Hulu has some other kind of like broadcast television thing or whatever, but whatever Hulu I'm paying for

01:07:39   It never has commercials, but I don't think I'm paying for the one where people try to use Hulu to replace cable

01:07:43   I just pay for like Hulu so I can watch like

01:07:45   Mad Men woman dressed all in a man's tail. I got it eventually I'm sold

01:07:52   But yeah, hey mate stay on a bunch of like Hulu quote-unquote originals

01:07:56   That's what I watch in Hulu and they don't have commercials, but I always dread

01:07:59   Wandering around Hulu and accidentally getting something with a commercial. That's bad

01:08:02   speaking of streaming services and cable television despite me having just said that I subscribe to million

01:08:09   streaming services and pay for like all the things you can pay a cable company for I

01:08:14   Recently experienced something very frustrating which I'm sure is very familiar for people who live outside the US which is that there's a thing

01:08:22   that aired on quote-unquote television that for reasons having to do with like

01:08:27   Region or like right so I don't even understand the reason but like I was unable to watch this. So this is

01:08:36   It's a weird show to begin with. It's a remake of War of the Worlds

01:08:40   First season aired what seems like ages ago. It was probably like a year and a half

01:08:45   But you know the covert you really screwed everything up. But whenever the first season aired I watched him like oh, that was cute

01:08:48   I wonder if there will be a season 2 well, there is a season 2 and it was just released and according to everything

01:08:54   I can find on the internet

01:08:55   It was released all at once in a big dump on a French streaming service and it was also released

01:09:01   one episode every two weeks on like

01:09:05   Fox or

01:09:07   epics speaking of epics from before right

01:09:09   But like everywhere I go on the internet it says oh, yeah

01:09:13   No, they dropped this whole season all like 10 episodes there. They were available since May 24th

01:09:18   But how who do I have to give money to - and it's by the way

01:09:23   It's not it's in English for the most part. There's some French subtitles on part. But anyway, like it's a show with like

01:09:28   American ish actors or British British actors or whatever like it's not, you know

01:09:33   A foreign program where I'm trying to like get their content or whatever seems like a show that's made for me

01:09:38   But I can't figure out how to give anyone money

01:09:41   For me to see the things that everyone in the rest of the world was able to see apparently in its entirety on March 24th

01:09:47   All right on March. It was May 24th or whatever. So I'm sitting here waiting around because some

01:09:52   Local television stations are getting episodes like two episodes every week or something

01:09:56   so I'm assuming waiting around for a new episode of the show to be released and

01:10:01   It feels terrible. I can feel when when the shows are released one, you know at a time like an Apple TV+

01:10:07   I feel like hey the rest of the world is waiting with me but for this

01:10:10   Middle-of-the-road war of the world's remake series season 2

01:10:14   I feel like the whole rest of the world has seen it and I'm just sitting around here like schlub waiting for

01:10:18   Something to happen so I can get the next episode again

01:10:21   I'm totally willing to give people money, but apparently that it's not possible and it's frustrating

01:10:25   I'm so sorry, John

01:10:27   All right, Kyle Matson writes, what are your favorite keyboards? I like Marco

01:10:32   I believe have been using the Microsoft sculpt for a while

01:10:34   But the thing has an average life stay as lifespan of about 11 months in my experience

01:10:40   For me I am using the keyboard that came with the iMac Pro which is the space gray or black or what-have-you

01:10:47   Edition of the magic keyboard with numeric keypad. I like this one

01:10:52   I don't use numeric keypad that often and I could make a strong argument with myself to get the

01:10:58   10 keyless version of this but nevertheless

01:11:01   This is what I've been using and I quite like it both aesthetically and the feel of it as I've been saying for years and years

01:11:06   I love the feel of the magic keyboard

01:11:09   I have not yet gotten to the point of getting like the cherry taster pack or whatever. It's called sample pack

01:11:16   It's for tasting. Yeah, it's for tasting because I know if I do I'm gonna turn into an imposter Mike Hurley

01:11:22   But nevertheless, that's what I'm using

01:11:24   Marco let's let's start with you since you were more to continue with you since you were mentioned. Are you using the sculpt still? I

01:11:31   Sure am I have tried

01:11:34   Almost every other ergonomic keyboard that I've ever heard of or been told about

01:11:39   and many of them are okay many of them are even decent but none of them are as

01:11:44   comfortable on me and

01:11:47   Fit me as well as

01:11:50   Was it a pair of pants? Yes as the Microsoft sculpt ergonomic keyboard and not the surface keyboard

01:11:56   That's even worse doesn't work with Mac. Don't get it

01:11:58   I've tried it believe me although all the various like super like boutique II custom ones the ones with those giant wooden

01:12:06   Rests I've tried all them the Logitech one everything. I've tried them all and the sculpt ergonomic keyboard is

01:12:12   Still my favorite keyboard it is most comfortable for me

01:12:17   I never have RSI problems when I use this keyboard, so I'm still very much into it now

01:12:21   It is correct that they're not very well made and they do tend to die

01:12:26   Between you know one and two years of use in experience

01:12:32   So I just have like four spares. It's your cheese grater. It's got a design flaw breaks, but you really like it

01:12:38   So you bought a bunch of them it is there's there are a couple of tips I can give you number one

01:12:42   If you are into this keyboard as much as I am

01:12:45   Don't violate the big box set for a hundred bucks. It has the mouse you get to keep throwing away

01:12:50   They have one called the sculpt ergonomic keyboard for business

01:12:55   The serial skew is 5k v - zero zero zero zero one will put link in the show notes

01:13:01   It's only about 60 bucks most of the time

01:13:03   And Amazon sells that you can get it so and it only has the keyboard and the little numpad that I keep throwing away

01:13:09   So I'm only throwing away a numpad instead of a numpad and a mouse

01:13:12   And it's you know less packaging less waste so when it dies you can get this one for less money than the whole set

01:13:20   And I just consider it a cost of doing business that I have to you know use a new 60-ish dollar keyboard

01:13:26   Every you know 18 months or so whenever it flakes out

01:13:30   the second thing I can recommend is

01:13:32   The way it flakes out seems to be like it kind of feels like low reception

01:13:36   Like things like dropped keys or like lag while typing and you might think replace the batteries

01:13:42   It usually doesn't do it because how you know it's like if replacing the batteries still makes it flake out

01:13:48   That's how you know it's dead, but the reception on it is kind of weak in general

01:13:53   And so it's and it's it's not Bluetooth. It's one of those ones that has a little USB transceiver thing

01:13:57   And so what you can do is get a USB extension cord

01:14:03   tape it to the underside of your desk and

01:14:07   stick the receiver on the end of it and

01:14:10   tape it so it's right below the keyboard on your desk and

01:14:14   Therefore it only has to travel. I mean it's still traveling through your desktop

01:14:18   But it's only traveling like you know four inches or whatever instead of however many

01:14:23   You know feet it is between you and the back of your computer where the USB thing is plugged in

01:14:27   I have found that helps a lot

01:14:29   It makes it much more reliable and you might be able to get a little more time out of one

01:14:34   When you have the USB transceiver like taped very very close to it somewhere

01:14:39   That's wild. My experience is that Bluetooth is the one with bad signal

01:14:43   And I love the little Logitech things because their signal works from like across the room

01:14:46   So I have the opposite experience. You people I hear people pooping all over Bluetooth all the time for like keyboards and mice and stuff

01:14:53   I guess I'm an a CEC and a Bluetooth unicorn because I have never had those kinds of issues with Bluetooth and the idea of

01:15:00   relying on a wart especially on a laptop is just

01:15:03   Disgusting to me. So I am I am sad for you that you have not been able to live the glorious Bluetooth life that I have

01:15:11   Yeah, I still haven't either like I use I for my point devices

01:15:14   I still use a Apple magic trackpad on the left and an Apple magic mouse on the right and

01:15:21   There are I'm still getting Bluetooth problems with my m1 Mac, which is

01:15:25   Worse on the m1s

01:15:27   But was never really good even on the Intel's and this is like using Apple's hardware paired with Apple's computer and Apple's OS

01:15:34   Everything is new. Everything is perfect

01:15:36   Like it should be it should be perfect and I still have like Bluetooth flake outs which feel like a software issue

01:15:42   But still regardless of whose fault it is. It's an issue that is constant with Bluetooth peripherals and

01:15:48   The things that their own little USB dongles never gave me those issues

01:15:51   Anyway, John, what are you using?

01:15:53   So I used to I use the Apple extended keyboard for most of my life after the introduction of that keyboard

01:16:00   But then RSI made me switch off to a keyboard that is easier to press the keys on that requires less force

01:16:07   Even though I prefer the Apple extended to just you know

01:16:10   RSI and health said you need a keyboard with extra keys. And so I eventually switched to Apple's

01:16:17   Sort of slim aluminum line of keyboards that have changed over the years in subtle ways. I always use the extended one

01:16:23   I do use the numpad

01:16:25   I'm

01:16:26   Reminded of how much I rely on the numpad every time I'm booted into Windows doing something I start typing numbers into a web form

01:16:31   and nothing happens

01:16:33   Num lock isn't on because if there was a good article like you know house how long ago like where did num lock come from?

01:16:39   And why was it added for like to get cursor keys for keyboards without arrows on them?

01:16:44   It's like a 50 year old decision that Windows users continue to suffer with much like drive letters

01:16:48   Anyway, I do use the numpad to enter text

01:16:52   But that said I would buy an Apple extended keyboard without the numpad

01:16:56   Probably like this is speculative because I've never actually done it probably if I could get one that still had

01:17:02   Real arrow keys and page up page down home and right like those keys

01:17:07   I use all the time and I love having full-sized arrow keys

01:17:13   You know a just every single one of the arrow keys is completely full-sized that people are just begging on their laptops

01:17:19   Obviously, we're just a market space-constrained environment to get the left and right keys to be half-sized so you can feel for them

01:17:24   Guess what? I can feel for them and they're all full-sized. This is the ultimate luxury

01:17:28   Everyone should have a full-sized extended keyboard. Yes

01:17:31   I know it pushes your mouse off to the right because of the dumb numpad

01:17:33   But like I said, then I'm is actually kind of cool when you're good at entering numbers with it

01:17:37   I mean half the time I feel like I'm actually and when entering is like two-factor codes and stuff

01:17:41   The numpad is actually kind of great. But yeah arrow keys in hominin. So what am I actually using now?

01:17:45   Pretty much as I continued to buy Mac computers every time they came with one of those slim aluminum ones

01:17:51   I would just rotate like my previous slim aluminum one for the new one and they changed in

01:17:55   Size and color of the key caps or whatever

01:17:58   I'm currently using the keyboard that came with my Mac Pro which I believe is the same keyboard that the case he was talking about

01:18:04   They have what is it magic keyboard or whatever?

01:18:06   And it has black keys on it because that's what comes with the Mac Pro

01:18:10   And up in the attic. I have a bunch of

01:18:13   Apple aluminum keyboards of various messages I have worn out slash broken

01:18:18   Two aluminum keyboards in my life

01:18:21   One of them was the one I use at work for like eight years and the D key started to fail and I feel like that

01:18:26   One put in some hard some hard hours

01:18:28   So I don't feel too bad about that. But in general they have been pretty reliable

01:18:32   And that's why I have the spares up in the attic because I stopped using them if I get a new one

01:18:37   But the other ones are perfectly fine and all my peripherals are connected with a wire

01:18:42   Because my computer has probably has bad Bluetooth connection

01:18:46   But it's also far away from my mouse and keyboard and you know, it doesn't glitch out wired USB

01:18:52   Not through a hub

01:18:55   All right

01:18:57   So this is probably gonna take us a minute Lewis O'Neill wrote a long time ago and then things keep happening

01:19:02   But Lewis wrote Tim Cook said in a recent interview that allowing sideloading would destroy the iPhone security and privacy measures

01:19:09   Lots of people seem to disagree and say that it doesn't add up

01:19:13   What specifically would you say would be detrimental to users who wouldn't?

01:19:16   Sideload if other users were allowed to side load or use third-party app stores

01:19:22   There's kind of a lot to unpack there. But in short like what's the deal with sideloading?

01:19:28   Anyway, I think this topic was sideloaded into SK TV. Yeah, I think you're right actually

01:19:33   Apple put out this big PDF. It's like oh, here's

01:19:38   What here's how the world would end if we allowed sideloading and there's lots of people commenting on it and so on and so forth

01:19:44   as has been the case with all of Apple's interactions with

01:19:48   the courts and our government Apple presents a

01:19:54   A sort of a unified theory of what they're trying to do

01:19:58   that glosses over technical nuances that seemingly no one involved in the court cases or

01:20:05   The the government proceedings knows enough to challenge them on but that every single technical person who looks at apples

01:20:13   You know sort of larger argument says

01:20:15   Yeah, but Apple all those things you said

01:20:19   You're kind of lumping everything into one big ball of mud, but we know like between us technical people that these are

01:20:26   Separable things and just because you like to think of them as a big hole doesn't mean they are a big hole

01:20:32   That said there are a lot of nuances to this

01:20:35   so

01:20:35   this has become a big story recently a bunch of people have been writing about it and tweeting about it and

01:20:39   Again, Apple has put out this PDF that you can look at this paints this picture of what Apple's doing and why?

01:20:46   But I think the nuances are worth getting into so just to be clear to start the side loading means

01:20:52   Can I put apps on my iPhone or iPad that come from someplace other than the App Store?

01:20:58   Obviously, you've always been able to do that

01:21:01   If you're a developer, you can build your own app and stick it on there test flight betas enterprise certificates

01:21:06   there's a bunch of places that qualify for that but really what we're talking about is like a

01:21:10   Regular person who's not a developer who's not on a beta who's not getting apps pushing them from an enterprise certificate

01:21:16   Just like oh I heard about this cool new app

01:21:19   You should try it out and you tell your friend and they can go get it and that app comes from someplace other than

01:21:24   The Apple App Store that is the scenario that Apple is painting

01:21:27   It's apocalyptic thing that will destroy the universe and destroy Apple's business and destroy customers confidence and so on and so forth

01:21:33   Right, and so Lewis is asking

01:21:35   You know, what would be the harm in sideloading like if you don't want to side load don't side load

01:21:40   But what if I want to why can't you just let me do it?

01:21:42   What would be what would be detrimental to users who wouldn't side load if other people were allowed to like how does?

01:21:47   Allowing someone over there to side load hurt me

01:21:50   And then I think is a good question. That's why I put it in here

01:21:54   Because an Apple kind of makes this argument, but they spend a lot of time making a bunch of bogus arguments

01:21:59   So it's distracting but the sort of real damage that would be done by side loading

01:22:04   Isn't what Apple spends most of its time talking about like oh

01:22:09   It'll have viruses or there'll be scams and bubbly, you know, there's all these things you can look at and say, okay

01:22:14   Well, but there's scams on the App Store too and well viruses

01:22:17   You'd still be subject sandboxing you can get all these sort of technical arguments, but here's here's what I think

01:22:21   the the biggest damage would be

01:22:24   It's not damage as in like

01:22:27   You know the freedom of these users to side load apps would cause a problem

01:22:31   The problem is sort of in the supply and demand arrangement, right?

01:22:35   This is the scenario that I think would pray out play out pretty quickly. All you need is one app

01:22:41   That is desirable to a large number of people. Let's say fortnight, but I know I don't want to pick for tonight

01:22:48   Pick pick anything some app maybe an app that we've never heard of before a new app

01:22:52   Right the equivalent of fortnight ten years now some app that is super popular that is

01:22:57   Desirable that this app controls demand because people want this app

01:23:02   When there is something like that

01:23:05   Individuals will overcome a lot of barriers to get that thing

01:23:11   witness having a hit show on a streaming service

01:23:14   Suddenly people who had no interest in streaming service and maybe hate streaming services will say but everyone's talking about the show

01:23:20   I gotta get Netflix because it's got the show that everyone's talking about

01:23:24   I don't know what Netflix is but people keep talking about the show. So I'm gonna get it or

01:23:28   insert a streaming service, right

01:23:31   All you need is one app that is desired by a lot of people that

01:23:35   Is only available through sideloading to essentially bootstrap the entire world to a first approximation into?

01:23:43   Sideloading your thing and once they've side loaded your thing and have started bypassing the App Store

01:23:48   This is the whole like how does it harm me if I don't want to side load like well

01:23:51   What if I just want to sell but other people don't want to?

01:23:53   That's not something that Apple or you or users can control

01:23:59   App developers essentially control how many people are going to be sideloading right because by creating a desirable app and then only

01:24:07   offering it for sideloading that will sort of

01:24:10   Require everyone to do whatever it takes to make their phone able to sideload this popular app

01:24:17   So for people who say sideloading it wouldn't be a big deal because not a lot of people would do it that I think is not

01:24:23   true

01:24:24   Initially sure who cares about silo no one would do it

01:24:26   They would be behind in a million toggles or whatever but one popular app cracks that door open and once everyone's phones are able to

01:24:32   sideload

01:24:34   Because they all did it so they could run

01:24:36   You know hyper fortnight

01:24:38   2057 whatever the popular app is flappy birds like the you know it doesn't matter what it is Facebook imagine if it's Facebook

01:24:46   Once you've done that then you've essentially opened up everyone's phone to silent so what's what's the harm in sideloading what can possibly happen right?

01:24:56   What I was thinking about this and what it really comes down to is

01:24:59   You're giving up at

01:25:03   The at the least you are giving up

01:25:06   One extra set of eyes on crap that goes on right because you could set you could there's a million protections in iOS

01:25:14   And you can leave every single one of those protections in sandboxing is in app has to be notarized by Apple

01:25:20   No private api's because Apple will scan them for like you can you can include every single restriction that exists in the App Store

01:25:26   Just subtract one and the one you would subtract is a human being saying you know

01:25:31   You can't tell people your website exists, right?

01:25:34   It's the human oversight is the one thing that you're giving up in sideloading

01:25:40   But everything else that is protecting our phones would still be there, but the human oversight is not nothing right

01:25:46   It's terrible and that they say oh, yeah, we don't like your business model therefore you can't be on the store

01:25:50   That's why people want sideloading. That's why Apple is dumb to be fighting this fight alright, but it is actually a thing and

01:25:57   the lack of that human oversight

01:26:00   Means that because the sideloading door has been opened by fortnight or Facebook or flappy bird or whatever that allows

01:26:07   the world's worst scams to sort of freely flow in

01:26:11   We're not using private api's we don't break out of the sandbox, but we do present a user experience

01:26:18   That's filled with dark patterns and you know terrible things that would never get past a human being

01:26:23   Or we hope wouldn't get past the human being yeah

01:26:26   We all know tons of scam things get past the App Store

01:26:28   Which is why we complain about it because it seems like we're getting the worst of all possible worlds

01:26:32   But I feel like with a sideloading door open there would be more of that so I

01:26:36   Don't think sideloading would be a pocket an apocalypse

01:26:39   but for the people who think

01:26:41   There is this rosy picture where sideloading would just be for the nerds and everyone else wouldn't have to

01:26:46   Wouldn't have to deal with it, and they would just buy everything from the App Store

01:26:49   I don't think that is plausible because the motivation to sideload is

01:26:54   extremely strong for

01:26:57   Quote-unquote benign reasons. Oh, I want a different business model like all the reasons

01:27:01   We all want you know we want these restrictions to be lowered

01:27:05   So that we don't have to follow Apple's idea of what should be in the App Store

01:27:09   But then once you've done that

01:27:11   Now every possible app can flow through that door and even if every single one of those apps is just as safe as the current

01:27:17   Apps, but just has one

01:27:19   fewer

01:27:20   Step to get in front of people's eyes

01:27:22   That one fewer step is still one fewer step, and you know you give these people an inch, and they'll take a mile so

01:27:28   You know I read the Apple PDF

01:27:31   I think that most of what they say in there is bogus because they

01:27:35   They lay out the case of like every

01:27:37   Protection will go by the wayside and won't be able to do everything and I feel like the actual reality is

01:27:42   sideloading can be done with

01:27:45   Every single protection still there except for one and Apple doesn't make that case Apple makes the case that if you take away one

01:27:51   Protection you take away them all and I think that's kind of messed up

01:27:54   So I'm not trying to be funny, but I feel like I'm getting two different vibes from you

01:28:00   You're saying that Apple's PDF is garbage. You know maybe that's a bit extreme, but Apple's PDF is disingenuous and

01:28:07   Side loading ain't so bad, but then again side loading could be really crummy

01:28:11   I'm kind of doing the thing where like the people who are super optimistic about side loading

01:28:15   They're not thinking it through they're thinking only nerds are gonna side load

01:28:18   And it's not gonna be a big deal, and I think that is not the case so that's more towards Louis's question like saying

01:28:23   What's the big deal side loading if I side load? How does that hurt you like it's not realizing that?

01:28:28   The motivation to essentially get everyone in the world to jump through a million hoops to enable side loading will exist rapidly

01:28:36   And so if you if you think side loading is not harmful because most people won't do it

01:28:40   That's bogus, but Apple's thing on the other hand of saying if you have side loading that means it's a free-for-all is

01:28:45   Obviously not true like it's not it's not the same as jailbreaking the Apple can still require

01:28:52   Notarization they can still scan for private AVI usage like you're just subtracting one step

01:28:58   And it's the step that we all hate where Apple says

01:29:00   Like oh you can't tell people your website exists. That's the step people get rid of that's oh

01:29:05   You can't use a third-party payment service right those are all technically possible within all the restrictions that I listed

01:29:10   Can you use a third-party payment service while still applying all the restrictions?

01:29:15   Yes, there are apps in the App Store right now that collect your credit card right because they have physical goods right it's clear that

01:29:21   You can that you can comply with every single one of the App Store's restrictions except for that very last one where someone

01:29:27   Says oh, yeah, you can't take credit card numbers, and you know the world doesn't end

01:29:32   Yeah, I feel like this

01:29:34   Like you can both say most of Apple's PDF is garbage and also

01:29:39   Agree with the general idea that side loading on iOS is probably a bad idea

01:29:43   I think also you know see also John Gruber's post on daring fireball today

01:29:48   Which it makes a lot of similar arguments to what John was just saying I thought that was pretty good

01:29:53   You know there. I'm I think I'm mostly with John and John that I

01:30:00   I really don't want side loading on iOS to become a thing. I do think it would

01:30:06   Dramatically change the platform not for the better

01:30:10   Because again like you know like what the John's were saying it's not like only nerds will do it there will be major apps

01:30:18   Instantly that that just want to be out of the App Store process that will just bail out like you know Facebook Netflix

01:30:25   Whatever it is like Amazon like they'll bail out and then

01:30:30   Tons of customers will will all of a sudden become like side loaders

01:30:33   And that'll just become a norm and that introduces at that kind of scale that introduces potential for

01:30:40   problems

01:30:42   Not all the problems Apple said in their PDF

01:30:45   Not even close, but some problems nonetheless

01:30:49   This is why you know

01:30:52   Whenever we criticize the way Apple's handling this in-app purchase stuff

01:30:57   And and all their weird like studies and PR BSC statements and with their terrible testimony that they gave during epics trial

01:31:05   Whenever we criticize that or whenever I we complain on Twitter about it

01:31:10   Wow, do I see a lot of people jumping to defend Apple and to excuse

01:31:17   Every single greedy thing they try to do is saying well they built their platform

01:31:23   They can do what they want or shouldn't they be entitled today. I had somebody tell me

01:31:27   That if they give up their in-app purchase requirement, they would have to start charging me to use their API's

01:31:31   Which I thought was funny. What like it's like well, did they do that on the Mac? That's weird anyway

01:31:37   But and and the Mac is obviously a great example of like well

01:31:42   The Mac is already this way that they say is impossible slash would bankrupt them slash would become a virus written hellscape

01:31:49   And and it's not and it's fine. But anyway

01:31:52   for all those people out there who are

01:31:55   Super defensive of Apple in this way who really want to keep arguing with us to say

01:32:00   Apple deserves to all this money for themselves and how are they gonna pay for themselves again?

01:32:05   I'm sure they're gonna have trouble for all those people out there who jump to that defense. I ask you to consider

01:32:11   what happens if

01:32:14   US Congress people

01:32:17   Get to decide what Apple can and can't do with their platform

01:32:21   Do we really want that think about that really hard look at the history of?

01:32:27   How well US congressional representatives?

01:32:30   understand and know about and handle

01:32:34   technology issues

01:32:37   These are not the people we want to make massive controlling decisions about our little world of tech over here

01:32:45   We've grown and we've been great and we've had a wonderful time in this little world over here of tech

01:32:51   mostly because we move too quickly for all those ignorant dinosaurs to interfere with us if

01:32:58   They're gonna start interfering with us. We're not going to like the outcome

01:33:03   There's lots of really good important reasons

01:33:07   Why if you like the way Apple does things if you like the way the tech business does things?

01:33:13   You really really don't want to have the US government

01:33:19   Start writing the rules in a big way and that's what they're doing and

01:33:23   the the primary concern

01:33:26   Like if you look at like what Apple's doing here strategically

01:33:31   And and I think it says a lot that people like Ben Thompson and John Gruber are making this case as well like

01:33:38   strategically it makes very little sense for Apple to be so vehemently defending a

01:33:44   very small part of their revenue

01:33:47   in a way that might make

01:33:49   legislators

01:33:52   Interfere in a very big way with the way they make their products like that's that is strategically

01:33:58   bizarre

01:34:00   It's it's almost like I think if we look back if suppose in 20 years

01:34:04   We're looking back on like this era of Apple and we're trying to figure and people are enumerating like, you know

01:34:10   What what went well and what was maybe a strategic blunder that they made? I

01:34:15   Think there's gonna be two

01:34:17   Massive strategic blunders that we're going to point to at this time in Apple history in the future

01:34:21   Number one is the over reliance on China and number two is this decision right here?

01:34:28   I think this is a massive strategic blunder for Apple to be holding on so tightly to their in-app purchase

01:34:33   Exclusivity and you know non-competition rules the anti-steering rules. They're holding on so tightly to that

01:34:41   Which is probably if they relax those rules might cost them a few percentage points of their service area

01:34:47   It wouldn't even be a big amount

01:34:49   They're holding on so tight to that while

01:34:51   Kind of like playing chicken with with legislators and what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?

01:34:56   like well, they're about to they're trying to do a lot and

01:34:58   Yeah

01:34:59   the US is pretty messed up in our legislative branch and

01:35:03   Most of the stuff probably won't get through because we can't get a lot of things through these days

01:35:07   but

01:35:09   What if they do?

01:35:11   What if any of these bills get through like if any of these bills get through Apple has a problem and

01:35:17   Depending on which of the bills might get through they have bigger problems

01:35:22   They really shouldn't be playing with this this much fire and they are doing it

01:35:28   They're gambling their own future ability to operate in basic ways that that they need to operate in

01:35:35   in order to not

01:35:38   potentially lose a few percent of

01:35:40   their service revenue here

01:35:41   Like it's it seems like a gamble that is not worth taking and so if you are out there saying

01:35:46   Apple deserves to do whatever they want and they should keep all their money

01:35:50   Can they just keep me keep making more and they need people like me to defend them

01:35:54   They don't but you know if if you're that kind of person, that's your point of view

01:35:57   You want them to do what it takes to relieve the regulatory pressure and get the government off their back?

01:36:05   Because if the government stays on their back things are gonna go badly for all of us

01:36:10   We don't want that you don't want that and they shouldn't want that

01:36:14   so what we need is to relieve the government pressure and the best way to do that is

01:36:20   For them to relax the in-app purchase rules

01:36:24   Just enough so that people like Spotify can have their own business off to the side

01:36:31   Not using that purchase maybe kick them out to a web view to do the purchase who cares

01:36:36   Maybe if you if you have to carve out an exclusion to say our games can't do it, but everything else can

01:36:42   That's not great. But that that would also probably be enough to get most regulation off their back if you could just do that

01:36:50   this entire like barrage of

01:36:54   crap that's all over Apple right now from regulators around the world mostly or entirely disappears and

01:37:01   Then the government has way less steam in it to try to make larger changes

01:37:08   to Apple like integrate like banning integration of their own stuff banning bundling of their own services you believe me we

01:37:16   Don't want that as an industry and certainly as Apple people and Apple itself

01:37:20   You do not want those kind of laws to even be floated let alone to get anywhere near passing. So

01:37:26   You we want Apple to get the government off their back

01:37:31   and

01:37:32   be like self-regulate able and the only way to do that at this point is

01:37:37   Relieve those in-app purchase rules a little bit

01:37:42   Let people like Spotify and Netflix and Amazon link out to a payment method. That's not in their app

01:37:49   That that is the compromise that's going to be necessary here

01:37:52   and if Apple continues to refuse to do that, they're playing with fire and

01:37:58   That is a massive strategic blunder. I

01:38:01   Do wonder if it is already too late like I think about like, you know, we've been saying this forever

01:38:07   It's like at a certain point once the ball starts rolling Apple says, you know, we changed your mind

01:38:11   You can use your own payment method people like that. Yeah, well too late. We're already kind of doing this thing here

01:38:17   It's like but no we're gonna be nicer. We're gonna do it's like yeah, but you don't understand

01:38:21   See we already kind of like we have things like drafted up and we're gonna like vote on them and stuff and we would have

01:38:27   To like sort of relitigate this whole thing and rediscuss it because of your last minute like now we're that what Apple I think

01:38:32   Really wants or is expecting they're like, okay if it looks like we're gonna lose this we will essentially

01:38:37   Come to the negotiating table and sort of plea bargain our way down to okay you if you don't pass these laws

01:38:44   We'll do X Y and Z like I think they're hoping that that's what's gonna happen

01:38:47   But I can't tell if that it really is happening and but at a certain point

01:38:49   When momentum gets going like maybe it's too late like none of that

01:38:52   No matter what Apple does for sort of reasonable fixes that just like it's a thing that's sort of you know

01:38:58   Trundling down the tracks and something's gonna happen now, you know as you noted

01:39:02   Our country is not particularly good at passing laws. Even when everyone in the country wants them

01:39:07   This is kind of popular

01:39:08   But it's not as popular as many other things that we're not able to get passed and there's always good old

01:39:11   Money in politics and corruption all the other things that can stop this from happening

01:39:14   so it seems like from the outside that Apple is of the opinion that

01:39:18   There's no way you're gonna do this to us because we just have too much money in power

01:39:22   And so we are going not going to give an inch

01:39:24   And we are just going to press and press our case as hard as we possibly can and just assume that

01:39:29   We are too rich and powerful to be subject to your laws and then maybe they're right like, you know, Marco

01:39:34   You're saying is it gonna come out as a big blunder?

01:39:36   But if they play this game of chicken and win it's gonna look genius right the you know, we stared it down

01:39:41   We didn't give an inch or whatever

01:39:43   But the thing about giving setting aside like the current situation with these laws most of which I think have no chance of going

01:39:49   You are but some of them might

01:39:51   If you think about where Apple has to give like in

01:39:56   General you want to boil it down?

01:39:58   Nobody cares about this stuff until you mess with their money

01:40:01   Right, and the only people who count are the people who are also rich and powerful

01:40:06   So if you mess with the money of other rich and powerful companies and people you find yourself in the situation

01:40:12   So if there's anything Apple is doing in the App Store ask yourself

01:40:16   Are they messing with somebody's money here?

01:40:17   And if the answer is yes, those are the places where if Apple wants to not be forced to do sideloading or whatever

01:40:23   Apple has to change the rules

01:40:26   I'm messing with someone's money by taking 30% of all their in-app purchases. Oh, yeah, no, I'm messing with someone's money by telling them

01:40:32   You can't run that kind of business on the App Store because we don't like it. Yeah, you're messing with their money

01:40:38   Like if you're if you're basically saying you've got a great idea for an app

01:40:42   We don't think that's the right fit for the App Store. So you just can't have an app like that period no any

01:40:47   App like that's not your specific app

01:40:49   It's just this whole category of app you feel like but you know, especially if you've already built that app

01:40:54   You have big problems, but even though you're not right

01:40:56   that's

01:40:58   if you just turn those relief valves of

01:41:01   Apple will mess with your money not not at all but less much less. There will be less messing with your money

01:41:08   suddenly all the other come legitimate complaints that people have

01:41:12   Mostly disappear because it's like yeah, but no one who's rich and powerful cares. So

01:41:17   You know abstract arguments about innovation or whatever. It's like look

01:41:21   Is there some big company that's not able to make money or make as much money because of some rule that is essentially self-serving for Apple

01:41:27   Then you've got a problem, but if not, everything's fine

01:41:30   So it's not as you know, if Apple wants to triage this and do sort of a plea bargain type deal

01:41:35   They know what they have to do, right? It's just painful for them to ever

01:41:40   Give up money that they're currently getting it as Marco point out

01:41:45   It's not like this is like oh if they give up this money, they're gonna go bankrupt

01:41:48   Like this is not the majority of their income

01:41:51   it's not even that big a percentage of their income in the grand scheme of things and

01:41:55   Especially if they carve out for games, which is like 85% of their in-app purchase revenue

01:41:59   Anyway, if they set aside that carve-out which seems perfectly plausible

01:42:02   Because of the how the whole rest of the game industry works the hits their income would be minuscule

01:42:08   But you would stop messing with people's money

01:42:10   Oh, and by the way on top of all that there's all this stuff that we've talked about for ages

01:42:13   Just like oh, yeah, and maybe it would be nice to buy Kindle books inside the Kindle app

01:42:17   That's not why they're doing it

01:42:18   They would be doing it to stop messing with Amazon's money

01:42:21   but as a side effect customers would also get a better experience from using their phones because wouldn't it be great if on your

01:42:26   iPhone you could use the Kindle app and find a book and buy it and read it

01:42:29   Imagine that it's not asking for too much, but that's not why they're doing it

01:42:33   That's all these is high fluting reasons that we talk about like, oh, wouldn't that be better Apple?

01:42:37   Can't we appeal to their sense of like providing the user experience? That's not the right appeal

01:42:41   the appeal has to be you're messing with Amazon's money and Amazon is angry and

01:42:46   You know dot dot dot now you know you're facing congressional, you know possible congressional action

01:42:53   there's a bunch of things in those dot dots, but basically Apple has messed with the money of too many rich and powerful people for too long and

01:43:00   Collectively they are able to rally the will of

01:43:06   Elected slash bought representatives to the point where now there are some very terrifying laws coming down

01:43:12   Which I agree with Marco if you look at a lot of these they have a at best you could say a utopian view

01:43:17   Of what the new world would be like by essentially

01:43:20   Restricting Apple from doing the things that Apple does which is integrating hardware software and services in a way that quote-unquote only Apple can do

01:43:28   I know the alternative of that I've even talked about on this program

01:43:31   Like wouldn't it be great if just everything was an open platform with

01:43:34   Intergenerational parts and companies can compete on those parts and like wasn't it great when like

01:43:38   Apple did the hardware on the OS and Google did the services right and

01:43:42   Everyone sort of stayed in their lane and Google was good at doing maps and Apple was good at doing

01:43:46   OSes and apps and you know just was the best of everything

01:43:50   But that's not the way the world works. It will never work that way eventually Google made its own phone and Apple made

01:43:56   It's on maps and you know like everyone wants to do everything right and I understand the laws thinking like well if we had laws

01:44:01   Against that that wouldn't happen if the OS vendor wasn't allowed to have a music service

01:44:05   Then there'd be more competition for the music service and it would

01:44:07   Bend it the OS vendor would benefit from making it the best OS for you to plug in your music service and that'd be general

01:44:15   hooks for plugging in your music service into iOS so that every

01:44:19   You know every music service could have the same integration that Apple music has today wouldn't that be great?

01:44:24   It would be but I think history has shown that never actually happens like even with laws to try to make it happen

01:44:32   There's always deals and preferred vendors and things you can do with API's within the letter of the law that are perfectly legal

01:44:39   But then nevertheless

01:44:41   favor or disfavor your friends slash enemies and you know, I I

01:44:45   understand that the vision that they're going for but the laws as written it implemented would

01:44:51   Certainly destroy the good we have now and I think would not be successful in replacing it with

01:44:56   The good that is envisioned

01:44:58   it's not the same as open doc but it's a similar type of thing that if you describe it it sounds like a great thing from

01:45:03   both a technological and a

01:45:05   economic and capitalistic thing but in practice

01:45:08   Open doc didn't work for the same reason these schemes won't work is that it's not it's not in human nature

01:45:14   To be as magnanimous as these things are required

01:45:17   It's not a human nature for for the companies to give up power that they have and if it's taken from them

01:45:22   They won't just say all shucks

01:45:23   Let's be great citizens and make a super open platform where everyone plugs in they'll just find new ways to

01:45:28   Collude and compete in favor and attack because that's what people do

01:45:32   Thanks to our sponsors this week

01:45:35   Linode

01:45:36   Memberful and made in and thank you to our members who support us directly you can join at ATP that FM slash join

01:45:43   We will talk to you next week

01:45:45   Now the show is over they didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental

01:45:56   It was accidental

01:45:58   John didn't do any research Margo and Casey wouldn't let him because it was accidental

01:46:05   It was accidental

01:46:08   And you can find the show notes at ATP

01:46:12   FM and if you're into Twitter

01:46:16   You can follow them at

01:46:20   Cas ey l is s so that's Casey lists ma RC o ar m

01:46:27   anti Marco Armin s IR

01:46:31   AC

01:46:33   USA, Syracuse

01:46:48   Speaking of difficult problems I

01:46:50   I

01:46:52   replayed for the first time in about

01:46:54   30 years

01:46:57   the game Tasmania for the Sega Genesis Oh

01:47:00   We haven't spoken about your I almost said emulation, but god forbid it was it is not emulation

01:47:06   We haven't spoken about your adventures in old video games in a while. Yeah, I recently I played through it over the last couple days

01:47:14   Wow is that game like just comically hard like there's

01:47:19   Tasmania like the Tasmanian devil yes, yes. It was one of those like annoyingly like, you know cheap licensed things

01:47:25   and I had this game like I actually own this game and

01:47:30   It like so Tiff has this game on her phone that I think it's called like super trap world or something like that

01:47:38   And there's this whole genre of games. I forget what it's called, but it's like something core

01:47:44   Like Massacore, I think where the idea is to just be as ridiculously hard as possible

01:47:50   like just like comically frustrating like you jump on a platform and it just like falls over and then like something else comes in button crushes

01:47:57   You like the only way to get through the game is to basically

01:48:00   Try getting through just keep dying

01:48:03   memorize what's going to happen and just plow through until you can actually get past like, you know, the very first level and

01:48:12   No matter how you play it no matter how good of a player you are

01:48:15   You will run into something that like the first time you do this

01:48:19   well

01:48:19   You're just going to die because you had you had no way to possibly know that that would happen

01:48:24   Nothing indicated this would happen or you have to like you to take a blind jump and not even see what you're jumping

01:48:30   Toward and just hope there's something there and then the first three times you do it you'd fall and die because you don't know where

01:48:36   the other platform is

01:48:37   Eventually, you'll get there, right? So

01:48:40   Tasmania for the Genesis is

01:48:42   Like the very early version of this style of game

01:48:45   But I know this wasn't the first one. I'm sure that people will talk about like pitfalls stuff like that, but

01:48:50   my god, like

01:48:53   people often talk about how games have become easier over time and certainly they become less tedious with things like

01:48:59   You know save games and and you know various ways that you don't have to like

01:49:04   Beat the entire game in one sitting like you did with the old consoles didn't have battery backup or anything like that

01:49:09   but like

01:49:11   Playing through Tasmania was so I just I was laughing at how

01:49:15   ridiculously like

01:49:17   Cruelly difficult it was at times

01:49:19   They're just like you just yeah again you like you you just jump and you just land somewhere. Oh, you're dead

01:49:24   like that's I

01:49:25   Laughed my ass off like in the minecart level which is like one of the great minecart levels in video game history

01:49:32   There's actually two of them. They're so great

01:49:34   because they're just brutal like just

01:49:38   Like

01:49:39   Ridiculous levels you've ever seen you will just go through so many deaths

01:49:43   Just trying to like just memorize the order of things that you have to do in the minecart level to get through it

01:49:49   Like it's it's comical

01:49:51   so if anybody wants if you're into that kind of game of just like the the like

01:49:55   Kind of masochistic humor of trying to get through it

01:49:58   Tasmania for Sega Genesis

01:50:00   Watching a YouTube video on this game looks terrible. Everyone should just play battle toads. I

01:50:06   Remember battle so it's being really hard to by the way

01:50:08   Yep, it's really hard and it doesn't look as bad as Tasmania like it just Tasmania

01:50:14   looks I mean looks like what it is like a licensed game like just

01:50:18   This the animation of the sprites and the main character and everything just don't

01:50:22   They don't look they don't fit in they don't it doesn't look graceful

01:50:25   It's not you know, I mean, I'm sure it plays like any other sort of you know

01:50:29   Instant death platformer of the era plays like that's everything Marco said about it. I'm sure it's true, but aesthetically it's kind of like

01:50:36   Not great, so it's like a vara

01:50:38   Var is elegant beautiful. Oh, I wouldn't say either of those things you download the Mac version and play it

01:50:45   Hard pass I will say I in the era of terrible

01:50:49   Licensed Genesis games. This was not the only one I owned. I also owned cool spot. Oh, is that seven up?

01:50:57   Yeah, the seven up logo guy

01:51:02   The tie-in cool spot is it an ice brand? No, it's also a like brutal

01:51:07   platformer with like just

01:51:09   Like if you if you had a sort of a if you had to white label like a you know a thing for laundry detergent

01:51:14   Right. It's just gonna be a 2d platformer

01:51:16   That's really hard and you're just gonna put the laundry detergent as the main character and you're done

01:51:20   No, but cool spots that like I really enjoyed it cuz like Tasmania just kind of cruel

01:51:26   Cool spot is kind of whimsical in a lot of the ways like because you're playing as like a miniature

01:51:32   like the scale of everything like you're kind of like you're playing as the spot character who's

01:51:37   Basically the size of like it's kind of Vegas to whether it's the size of like a bug or like a dog

01:51:43   It's I think it kind of very different levels a big difference there. Yeah, they're not super consistent and like they're scaling

01:51:50   It's like the movie cats. Yeah

01:51:52   but cool spot is less about like

01:51:56   things coming in and just crushing you and killing you instantly and more about

01:52:00   Comically frustrating jumping puzzles where like you just keep jumping and jumping and you eventually fall down level have to start all the way

01:52:08   At the bottom which has mania does contain some of those as well

01:52:10   But cool spot is like an entire game made of difficult jumping puzzles

01:52:15   But it's a little bit whimsical and the guy's so cute the little spot. He's really cute

01:52:19   He's wearing sunglasses the modern versions of all those games are so much better

01:52:23   Presumably the ones that are typically Celeste a game that yeah really likes it

01:52:26   It's a similar type of thing, but there's so much more to the game than that and the on the 3d side of it

01:52:31   There's the the quote-unquote Souls games like, you know popularized by Dark Souls where it's a 3d third-person

01:52:38   Adventure game with high fidelity graphics

01:52:40   But also has a similar type of you can imagine a 3d version of that where you're gonna face a boss and they will kill

01:52:46   You with one hit and you don't know how to fight them yet

01:52:48   But you throw yourselves at them and eventually memorize that, you know

01:52:51   It's like sort of high stakes right where you're not sort of a a sponge for damage

01:52:56   You can just go in there and just button mash your way through it

01:52:58   No

01:52:58   you know so everything in the world is deadly and

01:53:01   You have to approach things

01:53:03   cautiously and have a strategy and learn how to do them in the same way that you would be in Tasmania where like before you

01:53:08   Go into the level you have no idea what's gonna kill you and anything can kill you and eventually you figure out okay

01:53:12   It's sort of the pattern right imagine that but in super high fidelity

01:53:16   third-person 3d sort of medieval people with swords and giant monster settings and those games are very popular because they're moody and

01:53:23   Atmospheric and the ever-present threat of death fits with that type of game

01:53:28   And you know things like Celeste where there's so much more to the game than the platforming

01:53:32   But also it's that kind of platforming and even before that there's the bullet hell games

01:53:36   Yeah, you know top-down

01:53:38   Spaceship a million bullets coming at you and those just ramped up to an absurd level where you know

01:53:44   It seems like there's no way anyone could possibly survive this but eventually you figure out how to weave your way through the I was thinking

01:53:50   of them rather than being bullet hell I think of them as the

01:53:52   You know when you get like it's probably

01:53:54   Progressive, but maybe also Campbell, you know the soup where you get the little dots of pasta, right?

01:54:00   Like it's not noodles, it's not it's it's not chicken noodles. It's like orzo. No, it was always those oval right actual circular

01:54:10   Little dots of pasta. Yeah, I know they'll almost like tapioca beads but pasta version. Yeah, exactly, right

01:54:16   Anyway, whenever I see a bullet hole hell game

01:54:18   I think all the bullets look like those little things in the soup because the another the soup that little red around them

01:54:22   It was like a tomato a soup. It's just like these tiny little beads of pasta coming at you and spraying in all directions

01:54:28   Well, I will agree that in general

01:54:31   The storyline of Tasmania doesn't really hold up to the storyline of Celeste

01:54:37   What about the 7-up game? Is there a moving story in that one? I I don't think cool spot is known for its plot either unfortunately

01:54:44   Bye.

01:54:45   (beeping)